


A Fallen Star

by EmpressGeek



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Action/Adventure, Autobot Starscream, Friendship, Other, Redemption
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:48:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27743248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmpressGeek/pseuds/EmpressGeek
Summary: Scrounging for energon, outlawed by his own kind, it was a life that was far from the one he had on Cybertron. He never thought that anyone would help him unless he showed his worth to them, but then he found an ally in the most unusual place.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1: An Unexpected Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> A Quick disclaimer, this story takes place while Starscream was a rouge, specially right after Arachnid’s insectacon attacked him, and in this story, he managed to get away from Mech before they took his t-cog. All rights of the characters in the franchise belong to Hasbro so pls support them. Now on to the story…

He was flying over a forest desperately looking for a place to land. Trying to stay conscious and to hold his vehicle form together, he flew hoping to be able to contact help. His energon levels were dropping due to his injuries and he lost control of his vehicle form, revealing his robot form falling out of the sky. Every passing moment of the fall felt like a life time. “Was this the end?” he wondered while staring at the retreating stars in the night sky. Finally, he slipped out of consciousness. 

He awoke long after, not in a field or hanging on a tree like he expected, but inside of a large barn to a voice. The voice wasn’t loud and startling, but calming in a way. The voice wasn’t really talking, it was… more like…singing. He couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but as he looked around, he found himself covered in patches of scrap metal. He gasped with surprise at what he was seeing, and the voice suddenly stopped.

“Oh, you’re awake.” said the voice. He looked toward where the voice had come from, to find a human girl sitting on some kind of loft close to the ceiling of the barn. She had dark hair that came down just past her shoulders, pale skin, and a kind expression on her face. 

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Why do you care?” he answered coldly.

“Well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Wait did you just talk?” 

“You asked me a question didn’t you.”

“I didn’t think you were going to answer! I-I …what are you?”

He tried to answer but a surge of pain shot through him like a lightning bolt. He groaned and shut his eyes.

“whoa, whoa easy.” She said while climbing down a ladder to the ground. “You took a pretty big hit.”

“why did you help me?” he asked through his panting.

“because I couldn’t just leave you there” he seemed puzzled by this and she noticed, “Listen I don’t know what you were taught but I was taught to help those who need it, and falling out of the sky seems like a valid reason to need help.” 

“But I didn’t…”

“hush, don’t strain yourself.” She said walking toward him

She walking over to his left side and touched one of his long metal fingers. He had never felt a human’s touch like this, her hand was warm and the feeling was soothing. They sat there for a few moments until, she said “My name is Nya Lee. What is your name? do you have a name?”

“Yes, I have a name. my name is Starscream.” That was the start of a new beginning for both of them.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Over the next few days Starscream and Nya became more aquatinted. Even though Starscream never really did respect or care for organic life forms, he continued to grow more curious about Nya. Every day she would leave the barn with two empty buckets and a little while later come back, with them filled with chunks of red dirt. She would take them to a little round table in a corner of the barn and shape the chunks into round containers and figurines usually shaped like planes. Starscream asked her about this once, all she said was that she did this to live.

Nya always asked questions about What Starscream was and where he came from. When Starscream told her that he could turn into a jet and used to be part of a military force she became even more interested. But when he told her of what happened to him with his master Megatron, she was sad that Starscream was all alone. However, she was glad that he got away from the unhealthy place that he had with this Megatron. Sure, she knew that Starscream had made some bad choices in some cases, but everyone does.

One day Starscream began to wonder, there was pieces of scrap metal and some machinery in the barn but he was still curious. Nya was working on a new container when he asked, “Nya, how did you know how to repair me?”

“Uhh… my father. He used to work on plane for a living and he taught me all about them. By the time I was 8 I could a take apart a jet engine and put it back together but he wouldn’t let me do that with the costumers’ planes.”

“Is he the reason that you make so many of those little plane figures?”

“You could say that.” She answered while stretching her arms, “You know I think I have done enough work of one day, how bought we watch a tape.”

“Tape? I’m sorry English is my second language.”

“Oh, sorry I meant a movie, what kinds do you like comedy, horror?”

“I never seen one of your earth movies.”

“You have never a movie? Decepticons don’t have movies? No wonder you left.”

Starscream chuckled at Nya’s little remark. He watched her as she left her chair at the little round table and walked over to a shelf. The shelf was full of little flat boxes with titles written on them. “So, what do you think will make the best first earth movie impression?” Nya, asked while pulling out different movie cases, “Wall E, the Muppets, or… Oh, The Outsiders this is a good one.”

Starscream humored Nya and chose the movie ‘The Outsiders’ he was actually surprised with the story that it told, it wasn’t too different than the war he was fighting in. but his biggest shock came to him when turned to look at Nya, she was staring into the distance and gentle swaying, “Nya, are you alright?”

Nya suddenly fell back in her chair in a daze, while slightly twitching. “Nya?” Starscream asked.

“What?” Nya answered while jumping back into reality, and her twitching halted.

“Are you alright?”

“yeah, yeah, I’m okay Screamer, I’m just tired.” She answered while getting up from her chair. “if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to turn in.” she began to walking to the latter to climb to her loft.

“Alright.” Starscream said while he watched her stumble on her way there. 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Bang* Starscream jump out of his sleep, he usually woke up to Nya’s gentle singing, as she worked on her latest dirt project. He looked around trying to find what had woken him, his gaze came to Nya lying at the foot of the ladder, passed out. He quickly moved over to her gently nudging her with his metal fingers; secretly panicking inside. She didn’t respond, Starscream gently slipped her into his cold metal hands. Her eyes were shut, and her breathing was labored. Starscream found an old sheet, laid it out on the ground and gently placed Nya on it. He just watched her, not knowing what else to do. Slowly but surely her breathing calmed and she opened her eyes.

Nya saw Starscream with a concerned look. “What happened?” she asked still slightly dazed. 

“I found you at the bottom of the ladder, I think you fell.”

“Oh, no it happened again.”

“What happened again?”

“It’s nothing, you don’t need to worry about it.”

“I may not know much about you humans but I know that what happened to you was not normal. Nya what is going on?”

Nya sighed, “it’s a long story.”

“I’d say we got time.”

“Well, it was a few years ago, but I use to fly like you. Well not exactly like you obviously but I did fly jets for the U.S Airforce.”

“You were a seeker?”

“If you mean a military polite? Yeah, I was once, pretty good at it too I made Major pretty quickly. But then my father got sick, my paycheck wasn’t enough pay for all the medical bills, regular bills and any other necessities. I kept taking loans, and when he died, I was pretty deep in dept.”

“Nya?”

“I did something I really shouldn’t have done. I took an extra assignment.”

“An extra assignment?”  
“It was a simple mission, test piloting a new kind of experimental jet. Nothing was supposed to go wrong but…”

“Nya?” she looked up at Starscream. “What happened?”

“The test flight started out pretty normal, but half way through it started. It began with a little glitch in the radar, late responses from the controls, little things I could write off as bugs in a new program. Then it happened, I was given the order to do a nose dive maneuver, Half way through, the controls went haywire. I wasn’t able to pull up. The next thing I knew I was in the hospital with shrapnel stuck in me, with some of the larger pieces pretty close to my heart and the ‘episodes’ developed soon after.” 

“You crashed due a technical failure, and you were grounded for it?"

“With my medical issues I wasn’t fit to fly and they didn’t believe me when I told them about the problem with the controls. I was blamed for destruction of government property so; I was thrown out. Now this barn and the few acres of land surrounding it is all I have.”

“Your injuries caused you to fall this morning, isn’t there anything your human medics can do?”

“There are some medications I can take for the fainting spells and a special surgery for the shrapnel. I can’t afford them though and the air force wasn’t going to help after I apparently crashed their shiny new jet. I’m barely making it as it is.” 

Starscream was shocked by Nya’s story, he could have never guessed that she was a warrior, a seeker no less. A seeker that was taken from her place of fighting from the skies, like him. After this discovery Starscream kept a close eye on Nya. However, she just continued to live as if the conversation of her past never happened.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

After a few more days, Starscream’s injuries were nearly completely healed. One morning he exited the Barn for the first time since his crash. “Feels good to get outside right?” Nya said.  
“Yes, it does. I never thought your sun could have been so bright.” Starscream replied. Nya chuckled.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

He stared at the screen with a grimace on his cold metal face. His communication officer had found the files on the screen weeks ago however no one on the war ship have been able to crack their entre-codes. The metal door behind him quickly slipped open and a shiny, bright, red, decepticon, with a pearly white face walked in. 

“You wanted to see Lord Megatron.” Said the decepticon.

“Ah, yes Knockout I did want to see you. I need you to enlighten me on something. Can you please tell me how that you, Soundwave and the entire crew on this ship! Can’t solve a coded file!?” Megatron shouted.

“Oh, I’m sorry Lord Megatron, me and soundwave are working on this in between our other projects. However, it isn’t the easiest thing to unlock sealed files. Not without the con who sealed them at least.” Knockout quickly said.

“Well, then find him.”

“uhh? Come again?”

“FIND HIM!” Megatron shouted as Knockout hurried out the room. Megatron turned back to the screen, “Starscream you have always been a fool, but this will be your undoing.”


	2. Battles: skies

Knockout quickly hurried down the hall, of the warship. The thought of Megatron shouting at him fresh in his mind. A large metal door, slid open allowing him to enter. Inside was the commutations office, Soundwave.

“Soundwave, have you found anything yet? Megatron is going to have my head if we don’t find that seeker!” said Knockout as he rushed into the room.

Soundwave didn’t answer as usual. The decepticon commutations officer just stood there, emotionless. 

“I just can believe that he might kill me over Starscream! A month ago, that seeker wasn’t even worth worrying over, and now finding him is suddenly one of the top priorities.” Knockout continued.

Knockout’s rant continued, but soundwave, payed no mind and focused on the screen in front of him. The scanner was the same as it had been ever since he found the files. An endless search of the planet with no, alerts. Suddenly, a small red dot appeared on the scanner, they found him. Soundwave smoothly turned around to knockout, waiting to be noticed.

“It’s hard enough to catch a normal flyer, but this is Starscream. He may be and idiot, but he’s an idiot that knows how to disappear.” Knockout when on, as soundwave just continued to watch. “We, shouldn’t be looking for him! what’s is even on those files?” knockout paused his rant when he saw Soundwave’s faceless figure staring at him, “Why are looking at me like that?”

Soundwave smoothly turned back to the scanner and pointed at the red dot. Knockout suddenly took an interest in the scanner, and when over for a closer look. 

“Well, looks like I’ll be keeping my head after all. Find out his exact location, I’ll fetch Dreadwing.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Up. Down. Left. Right. He flew, the wind rushing around his outstretched metal wings. The sky embraced him after weeks of being shielded from her loving blue gaze. He was enjoying himself so much, that he forgot that someone was watching him, until he heard a whistle and clapping. His gaze looked down at his little one-person audience. Nya was smiling, her eyes looked so much brighter in the sunlight. He turned back toward the ground and landed.

“Impressive!” Nya shouted before whistling again.

“You liked it?” said Starscream.

“Of course, I never thought I would get a privet airshow in my back yard.” 

Starscream chuckled at her joke, he looked down at the ground, wondering, and asked “Nya why did you help me?”

“Didn’t I tell you already? You needed help; I couldn’t just leave you in the dirt.”

“Are you sure that it had nothing to do with the fact that I’m jet?”

Nya froze, “I-I don’t know.”

Starscream looked at her confused.

“When I saw your wings right away, I could tell that you could fly any one with lick of plane experience would know. I knew that without intervention you wouldn’t survive much less be able to fly. I might have helped you because I didn’t want another pilot’s or whatever you were, wings’ to get clipped.”

"Clipped?”

“When humans don’t want their pet birds to fly, they clip their wings. That’s kind of how I felt like after the…uhm…accident. A bird that got their wings clipped, and I didn’t want that to happen to anyone else.”

Starscream stared at Nya. He had never felt sorry and thankful to anyone, much less to a human. “Well, I’m thankful that, you saw it that way. I couldn’t imagine not being able to fly.”

“Wait, did you just thank me?”

“Yes, why?”

“You just don’t seem like the thankful type.” She smiled, “Your welcome and thank you too.”

“Why?”

“For letting me help you. It was nice to do something useful again.”

Nya, grabbed the bucket at her feet, walked over to a large hole in the ground and began to fill it with red clay. 

“So, now that your fixed I guess you’ll be on your way?” she asked hesitantly.

“I don’t know, I don’t exactly have anywhere to go.”

“Well, you can always stay around here or visit if you ever have to leave full time. I don’t mind someone to talk to.”

“It is nice to have a conversation where you don’t have to worry about what you say. If I do have to leave, I won’t destroy your… grass.”

She Laughed. “It’s usually called a lawn and don’t worry about that you actually did me a favor. It could take weeks for me get to clay that is this deep below the ground and I’m not a fancy rich person so I don’t really care about how my lawn looks.” Nya finished filling the bucked and walked back inside of the barn. 

Starscream followed her inside and found her back at the table in the corner, working on another clay jet. He could see, that she hated being a “bird that got their wings clipped” as she put it. Even though she wasn’t a cybertronian, she was still a seeker and a taking a seeker’s flite was practically a fate worse than death. He decided to do something he thought he would never do. “Do you want a ride?” he asked.

“What?” Nay asked, confused.

“A ride.”

She stared at him for moment, “Thank you for the offer but I can’t…” 

The loud booming sounds of low flying planes stopped Nya from finishing. She quickly stood up from her seat, and walked over to a small part of the dirt floor that was made of wooden boards. She pulled one of the boards up and grabbed a brown backpack from the hole in between the boards.

Starscream carefully looked out of the barn’s door, suddenly he saw above him were two silver jets, being led by a golden and royal blue jet. He immediately knew what they were. “Seekers.” He whispered.

“What?” Nya asked, as she joined him at the entrance.

“Seekers, high ranking decepticon Air soldiers.”

“I thought you cut ties with the decepticons?”

“I did.”

“Then why are you looking for you?”

“What make you think there looking for me?”

“I’m a fired air force pilot, that makes clay figurines for a living and I live in the middle of nowhere. What would an alien military force want with me? My own species doesn’t even want to deal with me.” 

“She right. They wouldn’t come for her. Then why are they here? The only thing they would be able to track is…me.” Starscream thought.

“Come on we can’t stay here.” Nya said.

“What why?”

“If they’re using some kind of tracking tech that can see through objects then this barn is doing nothing but blocking our view of them and it’s not very strong cover.”

Starscream nodded and peered out of the barn’s door, watching the sky. He waited for the seekers to swing past before they ran for it. He lowered one of his hands to the ground, “Climb on,” Nya looked at him confuse, “I can run faster than you.”

Nya nodded and quickly climbed on to Starscream’s hand. He gently slipped her out of his hand and on onto his shoulder. he peered out of barndoor and then quickly ducked back. The booming sound of multiple low flying jets grew louder and then started to dissipate.

“Go,” Nya whispered and they dashed toward the nearby by tree cover.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The seeker squadron, soared through the clear blue sky.

“Commander, Dreadwing, this is where the signal is strongest.” Commutated one of the sliver jets, to their leader.

Dreadwing was a golden and blue seeker, that was deeply loyal to the decepticon cause and Megatron’s second in command. He was a strong fighter in the air and on the ground. He was someone to be feared. “Hmm…” Dreadwing contemplated for a moment. Why would Starscream hide out here? Sure, Starscream was a strange con no doubt, but why would he choose to stay in an abandoned earthling structure? “take yourselves down.”

The jets quickly followed Dreadwing’s command, and the three of them headed toward the ground. With the metallic sound of T-cogs, and a loud THUMP, there were three metal titans standing in the clearing.   
“Search the woods, and only shoot to stun. Like it or not we need him alive.” Dreadwing ordered.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Nya and Starscream were crouching in the shadows of the nearby brush. They watched as the three decepticons began their search. 

“Looks like we got three targets,” Nya said as she slipped from his shoulder down to the ground, “How many do you thing you can take?”

Starscream looked at Nya, his face etched with a look of ‘are you insane?’, “You can’t actually be thinking of taking them on?”

“What choice to do we have? Run? They would just tract you down again.”

“And we can’t fight either. The viehcons I might be able to take, but the seeker is another story.”

“Really? That’s not what heard.”

“Heard about what?”

“You told me that you were a seeker commander back on your home planet. You should be able to take ten of those guys. I know that after what Megatron did to you, you think your useless, but you’re not! You deafened your planet and then got a little lost. E  
Everyone makes mistakes. You’re a seeker. you’re a warrior. You once ruled the skies and now you need to be that seeker again.”

Starscream stared at Nya. Did she truly believe that? Did she truly believe in him? Click, went the small black handgun in the Nya’s hand as she reloaded it. “Was that a weapon of sorts? She can’t be serious.” He thought.

“Ok, here’s the plan. I’ll cause a distraction and you’re going to take off. Try to get at least one of them to follow you.”

“And leave you’re here to be terminated? You have even less of a chance against them then I do.” 

“Don’t worry about me, I may look small but that’s not the only factor in a fight.”

“Are you certain?”

“Trust me Starscream.” She flashed him a smile. “I would fly west. There is a bunch of large caverns, and the trees are bit more spaced out. you can try and lose them in there. Good luck screamer,” She slipped through the brush and disappeared.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

She climbed up the branches of one of the pine trees. She laid on her stomach, on one of the larger branches, to secure a clear view. She pulled the small handgun from her belt and aimed for the beady red eye of one of the viehcons. 

“I might not be able to take you down but I sure can make it difficult, for you to take me down.” She whispered, and then pulled the trigger.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Dreadwing walked around the clearing. He may have been on this planet for some time, but he was still a little green when it came human settlements. Trying understand of what use a falling apart human structure and a giant pit served, was more difficult then he previously thought.

“GAHH!!!” shouted one pf the viehcons, as the shattering of his eye rang through the atmosphere.

“What on cybertron!” Dreadwing shouted. As he quickly made his way over to his troops, not notice the figure hiding in the brush only mere meters away.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Starscream, looked up at the golden and blue decepticon.

“Skyquake?” he whispered so quietly that even his audio receptors could barely sense it. He remembered the last time he had seen the decepticon Skyquake, and it was something he never wanted to experience it again. 

Suddenly there was the sound of glass shattering and someone crying out in pain. The golden and blue decepticon turn around and went towards the sound, before he got close enough to find Starscream. 

He breathed a sigh of relief, but suddenly he hears a ping of metal, and someone shouting, “IT’S A HUMAN!”

______________________________________________________________________________________________

A mischievous grin came across her face, “bullseye,” she whispered.

Nya was aiming her next shot, when she saw the golden and blue decepticon running over. “Ok Commander let’s see how ticked off I can get you.” 

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Dreadwing came over to find one of his soldiers holding his face in his hand with red glass all over the surrounding ground.

“What happened?” he asked.

The viehcons didn’t get to answer as another shot was heard and hit Dreadwing in the face. It didn’t do as much damage as the shot that hit the viehcon. Dreadwing shook his head for a few moments and looked towards the direction of the shot. His eyes widen with surprise as he spotted Nya. The viehcons that wasn’t hit quickly followed suit, but he didn’t let his surprise remain hidden.

“IT’S A HUMAN!” 

______________________________________________________________________________________________

“SCREAMER! GET OUT OF HERE!”

He heard Nya shout. He wanted to rush out of the brush and defend her but he knew that she asked him to trust her. As much as he was scared for her, he listened, transformed and took to the skies. The golden and blue decepticon quickly followed suit leaving his troops on the ground. Red laser beam bullets shot through the air around Starscream. He narrowly dodged them, with quick twists and shear turns. He flew west frantically looking for the area that Nya had described and weaving in-between the shots. His gaze fell on the a slightly more open area and quickly nosedived down. His wings sliced the air around him as he rapidly approached the ground. Then with on quick movement, he pulled in his nose up, leveled out and shot through the forest at miraculous speed. Left. Right. Glide. Turn. 

The golden and blue decepticon followed him with expert precision. Although his movements were rougher, due to his size, he was still about to stay on Starscream’s tail. Two laser cannons flipped up on the golden and blue decepticon’s wings and began to rain down fire on to Starscream. Starscream corkscrewed and spun, weaving in-between the oncoming terrain, and dodging the storm of lasers coming from behind. He was beginning to panic. Whoever this seeker was he was good. He couldn’t do this, he was going crash, he was going to die, and he would never see Nya again. Nya.

“‘You’re a seeker. You’re a warrior. You once rule the skies, and now you need to be that seeker again.’” He heard Nya’s voice echo in his head.

Nya had gone through more than most humans, and her story would make any seeker of any rank have respect for her. Even after having her wings clipped and being rejected by her own people, she still managed to get by. If not for himself then for her. He had to be that seeker again. 

Suddenly, the world around him seemed to slow, the trees and laser fire became easier to see and winded that rushed past him was now guiding him rather then blinding. Below him, he spied one of the caverns that Nya had told him about. With one quick and smooth maneuver, he rolled upside-down, dodging all the fire, and plummeted into the cavern. Wing first.

He leveled out close to the cavern floor, however the golden and blue decepticon was quick to copy. He dove down in the cavern. Starscream, dodged his laser fire, and swerved in all directions to make it harder for the golden and blue decepticon to hit him.   
Up ahead were tall stone pillars, the gapes in the between them were just enough for a small seeker to slip through. He had an idea. Starscream, turned down his jets and let the golden and blue decepticon get close. Right before the pillars Starscream turn his jets on high, and zipped into the field of pillars expertly slipping through them. while the golden and blue decepticon was caught in the jet wash. He stumbled around for a second regaining his wings. He chased after Starscream into the field of pillars, however he was too large for some of the turns and twisted that he needed to in order to stay catch his prey. He was constantly scraping against the pillars, scuffing up his paint and damaging his wings.

“SCRAP!” Starscream shouted when he ran out of pillars, and his purser hadn’t been taking down by them. He had to think of something else. 

They continued through the caves and caverns, Starscream constantly trying to outsmart his opponent and maneuvering out of his line of shot. The turned a sharp corner and suddenly, they were running out of cave. Up ahead was a rapidly approaching, water fall. Water fall? That means it was coming for somewhere. Starscream looked up and saw a large hole in the ceiling that was feeding the water fall. 

“Oh, primus, please let this work,” he thought.

Starscream fired his jets and bolted to the towards the water fall hoping that the golden and blue decepticon would follow him. The golden and blue decepticon, was naïve and fell right into his trap. Closer and closer they came to waterfall. Until the last second when Starscream abruptly pulled up, scraping his under belly on the waterfall. Starscream busted through the hold and fly up in to the sky. He sighed in relief when he saw the blue and golden decepticon wasn’t able to follow him, btu that relief was short lived when he remembered Nya. He quickly flew off into the direction that she was hoping that she was alright.

___________________________________________________________________________

Dreadwing was in hot pursuit after Starscream, however it was proving more difficult then he thought. Starscream was a much better flier then he previously assumed and he was pretty clever to fly through terrain that would be difficult for a larger jet like he was. He was easily getting annoyed with his little tricks and scraping against rocks were not helping his attitude. 

When Starscream quickly turned a sharp corner, and headed strait towards a wall of falling water. Starscream increased his speed, and fly strait towards the water. “Maybe you’re not as clever as you think Starscream.” He thought, as he sped up to catch Starscream.

However, at the last second Starscream pulled up and fly against the falling water. Dreadwing wasn’t able to follow suit, he was going much to fast and one of wings had been damaged when he hit one of the rocks. He transformed in order to slow down and he fell down into lake at the bottom of the cavern. He stood up out of the water and reacted for the scanner trying to find his target. However, the screen was glitching out.

“It must have been damaged in the fall,” He thought.

“SIR!” called one of the viehcons on his com link.

“What? what is going on?”

“Sir, viehcon 23-b is dead.”

“What how?”

“The human female, she caused it, and that’s not all sir.”

“What?”

“I’ve captured the human.”


	3. Battles: Ground

Nya’s eyes widen the moment she made direct eye contacted with the seeker commander. “Dang it!” She jumped down from the branch she was lying on and bolted in to the forest. “SCREAMER GET OUT OF HERE!”

She heard the sound of a jet engine take off and someone shouting, “Catch the human! I’ll handle Starscream!”

Nya swerved in between the trees, she knew that she couldn’t out run them, but she could still put some distance between them. However, it wasn’t long before she heard the sounds of heavy metallic feet pounding behind her. She didn’t look back, as she quickly slid down a slope and ducked behind some large rocks.

She slipped into a small crack in between the rocks. The heavy metallic steps became closer and closer. She held her breath and became still as a statue, hoping that the viehcons wouldn’t think to look for her there. Slowly but sure the steps began to quiet as the viehcons moved away from her.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t hear them anymore, “ok, Nya you’ve been in far worse situations before. Just collect yourself. Ok they are maybe twenty times my sizes, they’re stronger…faster…and can turn into jets. I’m screwed.” She slipped out of the crack, “No, I can’t start thinking like that. What do I have? 4 shots in my hand gun, I know the land, and I…Wait that’s I...”

She gave a quick, sharp gasp and collapsed to the ground, clutching her chest. Her heart was racing, and it rattled against her chest, making it difficult to breath. “No, not here, not now.”

The world around her suddenly began to melt together. The blue of the sky and the brown of the earth began to merge with one another, into a swirly soup, that had no rhyme or reason. Her body felt like it was being twisted indifferent directions. She shut her eyes and just waited for it to be over.

After a few moments she opened her eyes the world was normal, she was lying on the ground, a cold sweat coated her body. “Did I fall?” she said as she picked herself up.

She groaned, there was still a sharp pain in her chest. The shrapnel in her chest had obviously been disturbed in her panic.

“I have to be more careful.” She took a deep breath, “Ok, now what am I going to do?”

________________________________________________________________________________

The two large silver figures, stomped around the woods.

“Here Human! Human! Human!” Shouted one of the viehcons.

“What are you doing?” Said the other, as he held his shot out eye.

“I saw this on the earthlings’ ‘internet’. Its apparently works on domestic felines.”

“Why would something that works on domestic felines, work for humans? Aren’t they a completely different earthling classification?”

“I don’t know! Do you have any better ideas?”

________________________________________________________________________________

Nya was crouching behind large rocks, watching the Viehcons, who were both now shouted “Here Human! Human! Human!”

“These poor guys’ lives…” Nya thought, starting to feel bad about what she was going to do.

She quickly moved forward, careful to not to make to much noise or be seen. Taking a position nearby a bunch of frail dead trees, she grabbed a small stone and threw it right in the middle of the trees; making the leaves on the ground crunch.

“Over there!” said one of the viehcons.

A mischievous smile grew across her face as both viehcons ran right where she needed them to be. She slipped towards one of the trees, and used her legs to kick the trunk.

“There’s nothing here. It must have been a small forest rodent.”

The viehcons were starting to leave. Nya panicked she stopped kicking and jumped on the trunk, causing the tree’s weak roots to finally give out. The cracking sound of a tree falling, quickly followed. The viehcons looked up at the tree falling rapidly towards them. They tried to get out of the way however the viehcon, who only had on eye, didn’t manage get out of the way. He was thrown to the ground and crushed under the tree.

The other viehcon looked up at where the tree came from, he only saw the rocks and dirt Nya had disturbed as she ran off. Nya didn’t look behind her but she could hear the sound of heavy footsteps following her. She made a sharp turn right, heading towards and abandoned quarry on the property. When she got there, she immediately ducked behind some of the large white marble stones.

________________________________________________________________________________

The viehcon arrived at the quarry. He looked around the white and silvery grey quarry, looking for any sign of the human female.

“I know you’re here and I will find you!” he shouted. He began to stalked around the quarry, his flaming red eyes, scanning the area.

________________________________________________________________________________

Her back was pressed against a large cold stone. She was praying that the viehcon didn’t see her as he walked past. Slowly but surly the sound of heavy footsteps grew quiet. She took a deep breath and was about to set her plan into motion. Suddenly there was another sharp pain in her chest, she fell back against the cold rough stone, panting. The shrapnel was acting up again, she had to stop running, but she couldn’t. She breathed deeply, this attack wasn’t as bad as the one before, she managed to stay on her feet and remained conscious.

Nya took one final breath, the pain almost gone, and quickly began to dash in-between the loose stones. She kept an eye on the viehcon, but as the same time she made sure she was covered by the dark veil of shadows that rested in the cracks. All the way to a specific place on the left side of the quarry.

The quarry was an old marble mine that was abandoned years before Nya’s grandfather, bought it. For the most part it was a bunch of silvery grey stones, old rusty mining equipment, all of them relatively safe, however there was one part of the quarry that was different. As far as she knew there used to be a seconded quarry that was dug in to an old hill just above the left side of the quarry she was currently in, but some one had dug too deep into said and it all came tumbling down. The loose rubble from the accident was caught by some flimsy wooden supports, and it included some fairly sized boulders.

She rounded the corner and to her astonishment, and gratefulness, the supports, by some miracle, were still standing, although any sort of contact could send them and everything they were holding back crashing down. She quickly looked back at he Viehcon. It, or him, was wondering around the quarry, off to the right. He wasn’t where she needed him to be, but he was close enough for her to get him to be. She quickly climbed on one of the larger boulders, giving her a perfect view of the supports and the viehcon. She grabbed one of the smaller stones that rested on top of the boulder and threw it down on the ground just under the supports. The viehcon heard the sound and quickly ran over, right into her trap.

“And Auntie Grace thought that me playing baseball was a waste of time.” Nya thought to herself. She raised her handgun and very carefully took aim. She pulled the trigger.

Bang snap.

Bullseye. She had hit one of the supports, the ancient, fungus eaten wood shattered like glass. The Viehcon Quickly looked into her direction but it didn’t matter. She shot two more times taking out two more supports. The rest of the supports began to creak and groan, as they gave way under neath the heavy stones. With a large rumble then crash the viehcon was crushed under large boulders and heavy rubble.

Nya stood on top of the large boulder breathing a sigh a of relief, “YOU MAY BE BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER, AND MAYBE EVEN SMARTER BUT THERE AIN’T NO WAY IN THIS WHOLE UNIVERSE ARE YOU MORE CREATIVE!” she shouted, before sliding down the side of the boulder, very pleased with herself.

“Now to find Screamer, I hope he made it.” She thought.

Nya continued through the forest towards her home, walking slowly as her heart couldn’t take anymore running. Suddenly behind her there was the sound of robotic limbs moving, and she felt cold metal fingers seize her waist. She struggled trying to slip away, but the fingers remained tight against her body. The fingers lifted her off of the ground and turned her to face the viehcon whose eye she had shot out, now with a sizable dent in his head.

“Yes, Sir I will stay right her sir.” The viehcon said, as he finished some kind of call. He turned to Nya, “You should stop struggling weak human, you are coming with me.”

“Buy me dinner, and then we’ll talk.” Nya said, still trying to get free.

“I will not be purchasing any of your sustenance.”

The sound of a jet engine closing rang in the air, and with in moments a large blue and golden decepitcon flew in and landed. He stood tall and strong, but Nya was not about to let herself be intimidated

Commander Dreadwing walked over to the viehcon, noticing the sizable dent “Soldier what happened to you?”

“Ask the Human.”

“It did this?”

“I’M NOT AND IT! I’M A SHE!” Nya shouted still struggling.

“And it killed our associate?” Dreadwing ignored Nya.

“Yes sir, I checked, he was crushed to death.”

“Hmm… Humans must be more dangerous then we had previously thought.” Dreadwing leaned in to look closer at Nya; he had never been this close to a human before.

“Where Starscream?” She asked, now more concerned with the safety of her friend.

“Why would you want to know?” Dreadwing asked, finally acknowledging her.

“Wouldn’t you be concerned with your companions wellbeing?” She asked.

“You and Starscream are companions?” Dreadwing asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I have the right to remain silent.”

“It would be wise of you to watch your voice box human.”

Nya answered by spitting, on Dreadwing. His face was close enough for her to land a direct hit. The viehcon raised his laser gun ready to fire and kill Nya on the spot. She didn't regret it and stared down the gun.

“Wait!” Dreadwing ordered, wiping off the spit on his face. “If it is close to starscream it’s more viable to us alive, then dead.” He leaned into his com link, “Soundwave, we need a bridge.”

A moment later, a large swirling pool of green and turquoise light exploded, as the fabric of time and space folded onto itself. Nya’s eyes widened, and she began to panic as she was pulled by the viehcon in to the swirling soup of unknown energy. She shut her eyes, and felt the warm clawing hands of energy pool entangling her in its grasp.

________________________________________________________________________________

Starscream flew back down onto the open field, he transformed and land on his feet. The field was empty and eerily quiet.

“NYA!” he shouted, starting to panic. He began to search the field and barn, continuing to call her name. Nya wasn’t anywhere.

Starscream was panicking. Nya was the one person he felt like he could actually trust, and he just left her with two viehcon seekers. At best case scenario, she would be seriously injured if not dead.

Suddenly his com link began to ring. He cautiously and confusedly, answered. “hello?”

“Starscream, we speak at last.”

“Who is this?”

“Who I am is nothing of your concern, but you should listen to me.”

“Why should I?”

“If you care about your human companion’s safety you really should.”

“If you lay one hand on her!”

“Calm down, she’s safe, and if you want her to stay that way you better do exactly what I say.”

“What do you want?”

“Codes, access codes to be specific.”

“Where?”

“I’m sending you the rendezvous coordinates, now. You have two megacycles to make your decision.”

And the call suddenly ended. Starscream looked around hopelessly. Nya was captured, and they were going to harm her or worse, if he didn’t comply. He knew they could and would if they had to. Even if he did do what they said they still might harm her. He would have to rescue her, but he would have to do it alone. Or would he?


	4. Plans and Negotiations

Nya's sight was blinded by the swirling green light. Her world around her was fuzzy, and covered in white flashy spots. She shut her eyes, trying to clear them. She felt her body being jostled, with each of the viehcon's heavy footsteps. The electric *whoosh* of a door opening and closing sounded. She stopped shaking.

"Lord Megatron," Nya's body tensed when she heard the golden and blue commander.

"Dreadwing, have you completed the task and captured Starscream?" Spat a gravely metallic voice.

Nya opened her eyes to see a silvery decepticon, sitting on a dark throne. His burning red eyes piercing through the shadows of the room.

"Not exactly Lord Megatron, but I do have the means of capturing him right here." he gestured towards Nya, still clenched in the right fist of the silver viehcon.

Megatron's sharp silver talons rubbed his creased brow. "Dreadwing, let me ask you this. I sent you to capture Starscream. Not bring back a Human! CAN YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY YOU WOULD GO SO FAR OFF COURSE FROM YOU OBJECTIVE!" The room seemed to tense as the dark metal titan temper began to rise.

"This is no ordinary human, Lord Megatron." Dreadwing turned to the Viehcon. "Show him."

The viehcon removed his left hand from his face revealing the destroyed eye.

Megatron's grimace seemed to soften with surprise. The metal monster, rose from his throne. The sound of metallic alloys moving against each other rang as he seemed to double in size. The sharp crests that adorned his head and shoulders gleamed, as he moved towards them to more closely examine the wound.

Nya took note of every single sharp part of his body, including the daggers he had for teeth. Why does he have those? As far as she knew they didn't eat.

"The human did this?"

"Yes, I was just as surprised as you are my lord. However, he should consider himself lucky after what it did to the other viehcon under my command."

Megatron immediately understood as the other viehcon wasn't present. His surprise was evident. He leaned closer too Nya, taking note of how unimportant she looked. How could such an inferior creature harm one of the silver classed viehcon, and off-line another?

"hmm, are you certain? It doesn't look like much." Megatron asked.

"I am certain, Lord Megatron, b16-7 saw his comrade's sparkless shell himself."

"Interesting, but this doesn't explain why you brought it back, rather than your target."

"Oh, lord Megatron, allow me to explain. It appears that Former Commander Starscream, has formed a bond with this human."

Megatron's face grew even more shocked, not just at the fact that Starscream would enjoy the company of a human, but the fact that a human would like Starscream.

"That's a surprising, fact Dreadwing, but why would that matter to us? Unless it knows that code."

She began to squirm against the viehcon's hand. She had to get out of here. the viehcon suddenly clenched his hand. She screamed out, before the viehcon loosen the grip. She didn't squirm after that, her chest was beginning to bother her again, anyway.

"Annoying little thing, isn't it?" Megatron looked at Nya, enjoying watching her gasp for breath.

"I agree lord Megatron, but valuable. If Starscream has truly bonded with it, then he would do anything to ensure its safety, and after the deal is done, we tie up any loose ends."

"Hmm...A hostage situation? Getting what we need from Starscream while torturing his emotions at the same time and after the fact..." the dark metallic lord began to cackle evilly, "I like this idea. Contact him."

Nya's eyes widened, "He'll never fall for this!"

"Oh, on the contrary my dear, if you wish to keep your miserable human life, you better pray that he does." Megatron turned to the viehcon, "Go, to knockout and get that eye fixed, and tell Breakdown he has a new pet."

________________________________________________________________________________

The red and white autobot medic, Rachet, was working at one of the many monitors in the autobot base. He was working on the synthetic energon project again. With the autobots' supply running dangerously low, it was imperative that he made a version that was safe to use.

"Hey Rachet, you working on the synth-N again?" asked bulkhead, a large green autobot.

"Yes, I am."

"How's that going?"

"Not as quickly I would like." Suddenly a nearby screen lit up.

"What's that?" bulkhead asked.

Rachet walked over to the monitor, "it's an encrypted message."

"Again?"

"Apparently."

"What's does he want now?"

"'I wish to negotiate a deal with your leader, I require assistance.'"

"No medical kit?"

"He must not be injured."

"Then why would he need assistance?"

"I'm not sure, but if he's coming to us..."

"What's going on?" asked Rafael or Raf. A human boy of 12 years, who had incredible computer science skills.

"A message from Screamy." Bulkhead explained.

"Leave him." spoke up the blue fembot, Arcee. She had been eavesdropping. "After what he did Cliff and bumblebee. Leave him to rust."

"Opitmus?" rachet turned to the Autobot leader. "Your opinion?"

"Ready the ground bridge." Optimus spoke.

"Opitmus you can't be serious." Said Arcee.

"If a sentient being is in need, we will assist."

"Even a killer like him?" said Arcee.

"As autobots we must not leave any being, killer or not, behind."

________________________________________________________________________________

Starscream, paced around the forest where he had previously met the Autobots. He honestly didn't think they would help him, but contacting them was worth a shot. There was only about a megacycle before the tradeoff was supposed to happen.

He was about to take off not wanting to be late, when the sound of a ground bridge opening caught his audio receptor. He turned around to see the swirling green and white vortex of energy, and three cybertronians exit it. Optimus Prime, Bulkhead, and rachet.

"Starscream, what is it you wish to discuss?" boomed the mighty voice of Optimus prime.

"I'm willing to surrender." Starscream spoke.

"What?" Bulkhead asked.

"All the information I have of the decepticons layout, files and battle tactics will be yours. I will stay in one of your cells and won't try to escape. You're free to do what you wish me."

"Ok?" bulkhead said even more confused.

"What do you wish in return?" Optimus questioned.

"Your help in retrieving something from the decepticons."

"Oh yeah? Why come to us when you can just go to Megatron and ask?" Bulkhead asked.

"I have no allegation with them anymore. Besides they wouldn't care about the safety of a human life."

"A human Life?" Rachet questioned.

"I now understand why you wish to protect the human race. They are confusing, and a bizarre species, but when you actually communicate with them you can learn to respect them. The only thing I wish in return for my surrender is assistance in rescuing the human the showed mercy on me."

"And what would this human's name be?" Rachet questioned.

"Nya Lee. A female, young adult I believe. Pale flesh and dark keratin strands. She's a former earth seeker."

"Rafael," Rachet leaned into his com, "Search the database for a pilot, named Nya Lee."

________________________________________________________________________________

Raf quickly typed in the name, and up on the nearby screen popped up the image of a young woman with brown hair.

"Name: Nya Lee. Call sign: Raptor. Rank: Major. Enlisted in the U.S air force. She was terminated for insubordination." Raf read.

Bumblebee buzzed curiously.

Agent Fowler stared hard at the screen. Something about this Nya was familiar. "Nya Lee?"

"Do you know her?" Arcee asked.

"Not personally, but I have seen her fly. She was a very talented young pilot, but she had vanished off the radar a few years ago; now I know why. I had never seen some one at her age with her level of skill."

"How talented?" Smokescreen asked.

"Let's say they made a mistake terminating her."

"Either way Starscream's not lying." Raf said, before turning the com on...

________________________________________________________________________________

"Rachet his, story checks out. Nya Lee is a real person, and former pilot." Said Raf through the com.

"Listen to your human companion, I have no reason to lie." Starscream said.

"So, this Nya, you've bonded with and she was captured by Megatron?" Rachet confirmed.

"That is accurate." Starscream answered.

"And wish for us to help rescue her?" Optimus questioned.

"Yes."

"And after the fact you'll surrender to us? Anything you have we are free to?" Rachet said.

"I do not care what you do with me. I only wish for her safety. I know that with our history that you will not likely agree to asset me, and know I am not forcing or blackmailing you into this. I have not the means at the moment." He turned away from them. "But please for the sake of a life, I'm begging you to please asset me."

________________________________________________________________________________

Everyone in the command center was frozen stiff. Even Arcee was shocked. Who was this seeker? Certainly not Starscream...right?

"Are we sure this is Starscream?" Smokescreen asked.

No one could answer.

________________________________________________________________________________

Bulkhead and Rachet exchanged shocked glances. Both of them just as shocked as the others.

Optimus noted the surprise in his comrades and looked at the Seeker before him. Perhaps the emotions of a human, can even reach the spark of a decepticon.

"Starscream." His mighty voice rang clear and strong. "Your past actions are difficult to see past, but today you come to us with honor and bravery and a request to protect a life. If there is truly an innocent life in danger, you will have our assistance."

Starscream turned back towards them. Grateful and somewhat surprised. He honestly thought they wouldn't. He honestly thought that they would just ignore his pleas. He honestly thought... he would be alone again.

"Thank you." 

__________________________________________________________________________________  
AN: Yes Breakdown is alive in this. I just feel bad for the guy, he was taken too soon. In his place with Silas was just a random viehcon.


	5. Rescue

The Viehcon's grip was tight around her body and waist. It was staring to hurt. Her eyes had had time to adjust to the dark metal hallways. He sharply turned right, making her whole-body jerk, and entered another room, that was clearly some sort of containment chamber. No windows, dimly lit, clearly made to depress someone.

There were also, three other cons in the room. Two of them looked very similar to the viehcon that was currently gripping Nya in his fist, only they were purple not silver; she had seen a few of them in the halls. The last con was a very large mech. His paint job was blue/gray color, and a single beady yellow was staring at her.

"This her?" The Blue/gray one asked, his voice rough and he was clearly already done with this job.

He had already known he was put in charge of watching Nya while she was a captive. Word spread quickly around the ship, and two of the viehcons had offered him help. But it was pretty obvious that they were mostly curious. Humans were a rare occurrence on the warship.

"Yes," the Silver Viehcon mumbled.

"Put her down and go get your eye fixed, Apex. We'll watch her." Said the blue/gray con.

Nya was thrown to the ground. It hurt, but at least the viehcon had tried to be gentle. She tired to pull herself to her feet but another sudden spasm of pain forced her to quickly lean on the wall, and eventually she slid back down to the floor. She looked up at the three titans standing over her (the silver one had left), waiting for them to do there worst. One of the viehcons leaned down and reached for her. She flinched turning away, waiting for the blow, but instead she just felt a small tug on her hair. She opened her eyes, the viehcon was playing with her hair?

"So, this is what a human looks like up close?" said the viehcon. "I didn't think it would be so soft."

"Be careful, Tyo. You can't be too careful around humans." Said the blue/gray one.

"Oh, come on Breakdown. What is it going to do? Break it's fangs while biting me?" said the viehcon, that was apparently named Tyo.

"Did you not see Apex's injuries?" Said the other Viehcon.

"You honestly think that this little thing did that?" said Tyo.

"Never underestimate a human Tyo. They don't look like much, but they're surprising." Said the Large mech, that was named Breakdown.

He glared mistrustingly at Nya, with his single eye. Nya quickly guessed that he must have had a history with her species. It was probably a human that took his eye.

"Well, it's only one human not a whole team. Besides we rarely get a chance to look at them this close." Said Tyo.

Nya just sat there, not minding the conversation they were having or the viehcons poking her. Until he went a little too close to her face, she gently pushed his talon away. Her chest was hurt again so she didn't try to threaten him. Not like she could do much at the moment. She did have one more shot in her hand gun, but she wasn't going to waste it. Thankfully the viehcon got the hint and went back to playing with her hair.

"This is going to be a long day." She thought.

________________________________________________________________________________

Starscream was standing in the, much smaller then excepted, Autobot base, his wrists in stasis-cuffs, his wings clamped and weapon systems temperately turn off. He didn't like his current situation, but was fine with it as long as the autobots removed everything and turned his weapons back on when they left for the exchange.

He glanced at his right. There were six organic eyes slowly watching him. Starscream knew that the autobots had humans close. Heck, that's why he came to them, knowing that they wouldn't leave an innocent human in danger. He had seen some of them from far off, but he didn't realize that they were human sparklings. Why would they be involved in war? Shouldn't they be focused on their education? However, these questions didn't really matter to him, he only wished they would stop staring at him.

"Just to be clear, you met this Nya by chance, when you crashed onto her property and she repaired your injuries?" Ratchet questioned.

"I was in a recent tangle with Arachnid after she split from the decepticons. I fled in hurry, and was going to try and contact you for help. However, stasis-lock was faster to claim me. I crashed in Nya's yard and he used her technical know-how with earthling jets to repair me." Starscream answered.

Bulkhead burst out laughing, clearly mocking Starscream, "And were supposed to believe that? That it was her choice to save you? That you didn't threaten her? What kind of being, human or cybertronian, would save you, a decepticon, willingly?"

"One that didn't care about my past, and could see past my flaws." Starscream answered.

"Oh, that's rich. You mean one that doesn't know about all the lives you've taken." Arcee snapped.

"And you're so innocent?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Arcee's hand quickly shifted to a laser gun and she aimed it at his head.

"You decimate hundreds of viehcon drones weekly. What's so different about me taking the life of an autobot and you killing one of them? They both technically have sparks."

Arcee's enegron was boiling in her tubes. She wanted so desperately to shoot this scoundrel, and avenge her lost partner. At this point she was so tempted. How could he stand there and say his death was no different to a drone's? She was standing there holding a gun to his head yet he didn't even give her the satisfaction of watching him cower. This just made her want to send a blot of blazing hot plasma through his head even more.

"Arcee." Optimus spoke up, drawing the femme's attention.

She glanced at Opitmus then at her human partner, before slowly pulling away from the prisoner. She would have killed him if they weren't here.

"It doesn't matter. That poor girl will run in fear as soon as she knows your history." Arcee muttered.

"Nya worked in armed forces. She understood that sometimes in battle lives would be lost, either by your hand or the enemies. She would not be too shocked, if she didn't already know." Starscream thought to himself.

"Now, when they captured her, did they give you any coordinates? Some place to negotiate." Ratchet asked.

"Yes, they connected me not long after her capture. They sent coordinates and time for some kind of tradeoff." Starscream answered.

"What do they want from you?" The black-haired human asked.

"I'm not sure. They said something about access codes. However, I'm not certain of what they truly desire from me." Starscream answered.

"Are we sure it's not to use as a punching bag?" Bulkhead suggested. Bumblebee laughed beepaly in agreement.

"I honestly don't hope so...I've had enough of Megatron's fist."

The room, seemed to freeze for a moment. Everyone had known that Starscream's allegiance to Megatron and the decepticons, had always been questionable. They never questioned why though. However, the confirmation that Starscream had been indeed beaten gave his actions a whole new meaning.

"Starscream..." Optimus started; however, he was quickly cut off by, that sound of someone entering the base through a small human elevator.

"PRIME!" shouted another human voice.

Starscream cringed, as the human became visible. He had seen this human before; he had tortured him, actually. Agent fowler. Starscream hoped that he didn't hold what humans called grudges.

"There has beenn..." Agent Fowler's voice drifted off when he noticed the current situation, "Uhm...Am I interrupting something?"

"No, Agent Fowler, is there an issue?"

"Not interrupting? We're currently doing my interrogation, not that I enjoy it, but we do need to finish this up before the meeting to save Nya! Sure, with a ground bridge it takes only a moment to get there, but still! We don't have time for this! Every klik we waste here, is a klik that Megatron could be torturing her!" Starscream ranted inside.

"Well... it appears that the cons are working on something near Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina." Agent Fowler continued.

If Starscream's wings weren't clamped that would have perked up. That was the area that the seeker commander gave him. That's where Nya was. He lifted his head and started to listen intently at the conversation between Optimus and Agent Fowler, hoping that Agent Fowler had some information on possible human hostages.

Arcee quickly noticed seeker's interest, "You know something about this?"

Starscream turned to Arcee, and soon discovered that he had everyone's attention.

"Starscream?" Optimus questioned.

"Mt. Mitchell is where I'm suppose to trade off for Nya. I believe that the disturbance that Agent Fowler has detected, might be them preparing."

"Preparing for what?" one of the human sparklings asked.

"For me."

________________________________________________________________________________

Nya was wrapped in chains that were hung from the ceiling of a large cave that was carved out of the mountain side. Workers were everywhere mining out strange blue crystals. She wasn't struggling, as the drop from where she was hanging would surely cause major injury, if not death. She was trying to remain calm as an episode would not help at the moment. Not an easy task, while currently being over 20 feet above the ground, and surrounded by multiple, heavily armed, evil, alien robots. She tried closing her eyes and forgetting she was here.

"You should open your optics Human. If you want to ever, wish to see that traitor alive again." Spoke a gravelly voice.

Nya open her eyes and saw the dark silver titan, Megatron, staring at her. She may have been intimated when they first met, but know all she felt for him was pure malice. She glared at him, her deep forest eyes burning with hate.

Megatron broke into a fit of dark metallic laughter, "If you think that looking at me like that would intimate me. Your efforts are futile. I have stared down enemies much more frighting than you. Devastator Maximus, gladiators of Kaon, insecticons, and other enemies your feeble human mind could never even imagine."

Nya started to snicker.

"What do you fine so humorous? You are currently chained up and surrounded."

"Wow, for someone who talk such a big game, you suck at being at leader."

Megatron Stared at her. His face filled with confusion, but his optics clearly offended.

Nya smirked, "Let me explain. A leader is something that can rally around and trust. People will stay in line if you just listen to them. Only leaders who are desperate resort to beating their people into line, A.K.A a poor leader."

Megatron grabbed the chain holding Nya violently, and brought her close to his face. Using his large scarlet twitching optics to stabbed through her soul, "You would be wise to hold your tongue human. The only reason I am even keeping you alive is to lure Starscream here. I have no issue with having your blood on my servos." He let go to the chain, and left; heavy footsteps following him.

Her chest was heaving for air, a cold sweat suddenly coated her brow and the blood in her veins ran wild. She was now swaying back and forth on the chain. She would be lying if that didn't frighten her. She hung there. Silently wishing that Starscream wouldn't do something stupid.

________________________________________________________________________________

Bumblebee optics zoomed in, and refocused. He scanned over the large cavern, searching for any signs of human life. He optics quickly sensed a human body signature, and zoomed in once more. Just as Starscream had described, a young adult human femme with dark hair. His optics returned to the normal settings and he rejoined to the rest of the autobots.

"He telling the truth?" Arcee asked when Bumblebee rejoined the group, in the brush they took cover in.

Bumblebee musically beeped, confirming what he had seen. Arcee, was clearly disappointed.

"If you wanted me to be lying. Then you'll be disappointed." Starscream said, he was on the ground, his hands still in stasis-cuffs and his wings in a clamp.

"Shut your trap." Arcee said.

Starscream turned away. Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, his body tensed and flinched away out of habit. Scared that he was about to get beating. The hand was quickly and calmly removed. He looked up to see the tall figure of the Autobot leader.

"While, I didn't expect this situation, Starscream. I didn't believe that you would lie about this." Spoke Optimus.

"Uhm...thank you sir." He murmured.

Optimus nodded and walked away. Ratchet was on the ground looking at some scanners, when Optimus approached him.

"Did you witness his reaction?" Optimus asked.

"Yes, I did. For him to flinch that way when you approached him...the beatings must have been frequent occurrences."

Optimus nodded. It deeply saddened him, that someone who he use to hold in such high regard would resort to harsh physical punishments. "I do believe we should begin."

Giving a nod, Ratchet came up to Starscream and removed the clamp and cuffs.

"You know the plan. Walk out, pretend to be alone and surrender." Ratchet said.

"I know what I'm doing. But what will you do?" Starscream said, as he stretched his wings and rubbed his wrists.

"That's need to know." Arcee said.

Starscream rolled his eyes and took to the sky. Determined to save Nya.

________________________________________________________________________________

Time was up. Nya hung in the air. The atmosphere around her had grown tense, with anticipation. All the viehcons had halted their work, and the higher ups went still. Silence hung in the air like a sick, blinding fog. Nya prayed that Starscream wasn't coming. She prayed that he stayed away; stayed safe.

One by one the seconds slowly passed. Nya's nerves grew more and more unsteady and her chest began to ache. All of it was not helping her heart. This silence was long and painful.

"Uhm...do we have the time right?" A shiny ruby red decepticon, asked. Nya thought that he could play the love doctor on any dating reality-show.

"Soundwave?" Megatron turned to the decepticon equivalent of Slenderman. He only slowly nodded in reply.

"So, either he's late or he's not coming." The ruby red decepticon said.

The tense Silence was quickly replaced with one of awkwardness. Nya could hear the viehcons around her, whisper and shrug to each other. All of them clearly confused. She felt some kind of relief. Sure, she was probably going to die but who eventually doesn't. At least Starscream was going to be safe.

"Wait! Look!" Shouted one of the viehcons.

Nya quickly looked up. The sound of a jet engine rang in her ears and echoed off of the walls of the cavern. Soon a small dark figure stood out from the blue sky, like a black star. It swerved through the clouds, and towards the ground. Its form broke, and landed was a slim figure of a winged robot, that began to approach on foot. Nya stomach dropped, she recognized him even from far off.

________________________________________________________________________________

Starscream slowly approached. His optics were immediately drawn to Nya. The sight of her hanging; she looked so small, so frail. It made him furious. He had never seen the true cruelty of the decepticons to creatures they considered below them in this way; it was never done to anyone that he had come to care for. He couldn't stand it.

"Ah, Starscream. I honestly didn't think that you would come. Either this parasite has bewitched you, or you're even more of a fool then I previously thought." Megatron cackled.

Starscream stared at the Silver titan. His chassis gleamed in the sun, as his gravelly voice thundered through the air. Once that voice would have sent fear shuddering through his own spark, but now...Now he only felt pure malice. All Megatron had done to him he could forget, but he would never forget what Megatron did to her.

"Enough talking! I've come to bargan! What do you want for Nya?" Starscream shouted.

"Nya? Since when do you care enough for a human to know its name?" The Golden and blue Decepticon that had kidnapped her. Starscream remember that Optimus Prime said his name was Dreadwing.

"What do you want?" Starscream ignored the question.

"Access codes." Megatron spoke.

"To what?"

"Don't play dumb! You know what I am talking about! The access codes to the several encrypted files currently in the nemesis' databanks, that you left behind when you abandoned the decepticons."

"Are you sure I made those?"

"Stop your tricks," Megatron raised his fusion cannon and aimed it at Nya, "The access codes! Now! If you want your little pet to live."

Starscream optics narrowed, "Where?"

Megatron nodded to Dreadwing, signaling the commander. Dreadwing led Starscream so one of the smaller monitors, that were linked to the decepticons' database. The files popped up on to the screen.

"No funny business." Knockout said, in a singsong voice.

Starscream rolled his eyes and approached the monitor. He recognized the files, he had forgot about them, and gave the codes. Now it was up to the autobots...whatever they were doing.

________________________________________________________________________________

Arcee was perched atop of on one of the many ledges in the cavern. She had a perfect view of the spectacle below. All of Megatron's top soldiers, were here, Dreadwing, Knockout, Breakdown, Soundwave; he wasn't messing around. Her pale indigo optics finally saw her target. She still hadn't believed Starscream until she saw Nya.

"Arcee, have you located the target?" Ratchet asked through her commlink.

"Affirmative." She answered back.

"Can you reach her?"

"I can try. I just need your distraction."

"Get as close as you can. We still need a few more moments."

"Roger."

Arcee, quickly and quietly, made her way down the ledges.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Bulkhead and Bumblebee were hidden behind cover on the far left of the cavern. Watching the seen.

Bulkhead glanced up and saw that Arcee was mobilizing. That plan was that they would attack last second, Arcee would break the chain, and either he or Bumblebee would catch Nya in the vehicle mode. A human would have a much lower chance of surviving a possible battle field full of laser fire than a bot, even if they worked in the military.

Bumblebee too noticed Arcee. He beeped in wonder.

"No, not yet. We need to wait for Prime's signal." Bulkhead answered.

Bumblebee beeped again.

"No, I don't know exactly when..."

"MEGATRON!"

________________________________________________________________________________

The whole room rang with the sound of the shout. Everyone quickly turned. Slowly walking towards them, was Optimus Prime.

"Ah, Optimus," He shot a glance at Starscream, that could have killed him, "I should have known that Starscream would have turned to you human loving Autobots, for help."

"Megatron. Let the girl go. Do not involve her in the quarrels of you and your enemies." Optimus prime spoke.

"This doesn't concern you Optimus. Leave now and I will let you go unharmed."

"The harm you do to me is not my main concern."

"It should be." Megatron's cannon began to charge.

Suddenly Arcee leaped from her hiding place, nearby. She tackled Megatron, her guns blazing. All peace went out the window. Gun fire erupted around them. Arcee Rolled behind for rocks and began to counter fire. Her energon boiled in her tubes, and her face grimaced. She was ticked. Sure, she had stopped Megatron from shooting Nya, but she missed the chain, that was holding her. The plan was free Nya and get her away from the fight. But that didn't happen, and now an innocent human woman was trapped on a Cybertronian battlefield. Just great.

________________________________________________________________________________

Starscream managed to duck under some kind of cover. He was frightened and confused. Nya was currently caught in the crossfire, and he didn't know who to shoot at. If he shot at the decepticons, he would immediately be considered allied with the autobots, and the crew would surely be instructed to kill him on site; if they weren't already. If he fired onto the autobots, they might leave him and Nya to die.

He glanced up at Nya. She was swaying on the chain Laser fire all around her, some shots coming dangerously close to her. The fear and panic on her face was visible. His spark dropped. He did this to her. He let her get captured. She saved his life. She was kind to him. The least he could have done was keep her safe. He would take being wanted over her being dead.

A look of determination, determination to keep her safe, washed upon his face and took to the air. Left. Right. down. Twist. He seeker years coming back to him. He rained down laser fire on the decepticon troops, yet still careful to not hit any of the stray energon crystals that have yet to be mined. One by one viehcon soldiers dropped to the ground, either offline or seriously injured. He stayed relatively close to Nya taking out any fire that was too close, but this wouldn't last forever he needed to get her out of the danger.

Bumblebee was standing nearly directly under Nya. He didn't want to put her in the hands of an autoboot, but it would be better than her staying where she was.

"Starscream to Bumblebee, Get ready. I'm taking out the chain."

________________________________________________________________________________

Nya was surrounded by bright, burning hot lasers. Lasers! They didn't say anything about this in training. Then again, they didn't know about giant alien robots either. The booming sound of jet engine zoomed overhead. At least she got to see Starscream in action. She was really impressed, no wonder he was a high-ranking commander.

Starscream suddenly swerved and to her shock, split the chain with his left wing. The rest of it began to loosen and unwrap around her body as she began to plummet, towards the rock-hard ground. She closed her eyes; she didn't want to watch herself die. Suddenly a large yellow robot came out of nowhere. He leaped up and transformed around Nya.

Her body jolted as it came to a sudden stop and she opened her eyes. To her surprise she was currently siting in the passenger's side of a black and yellow muscle car. That was currently swerving throughout the hordes of giant purple robot feet.

Nya grabbed the nearby seat belt, "Are you one of them? Did Starscream call you?" She quickly asked.

The muscle car beeped several musical notes, in reply.

"Uhh...I hope that's a yes."

________________________________________________________________________________

Starscream watched as Bumblebee managed to get Nya out of danger. He would never be able to express the gratitude he had for the autobot scout at that moment.

Suddenly something came crashing out of the sky, and struck him on his left wing. The world around him was quickly twisted and blurred as he was sent into a tail spin. His t-cog activated, switching him to his robot mode. His heels scraped against the black gravel of the ledge as he landed, in a crouched position. He glanced up panting, trying to help his internal system cool, from the sudden panic. Thankfully, his wing wasn't too damaged.

A golden and blue jet twisted in the air and activated his t-cog. The ground shook when he landed. Dreadwing.

Starscream grimaced, "Trying to slice my wing?! Not very honorable Dreadwing!"

Dreadwing Faced Starscream, Rage building up in his optics. "Honorable? You're talking to me about honor!? You!? I always knew that you were traitorous Starscream! But siding with the autobots! This will be your last mistake!"

Dreadwing drew his sword. Starscream readied his talons and missiles. He wasn't scared of Dreadwing; he couldn't do anything worse than what Megatron had done.

Dreadwing raised his sword and lunged at Starscream. Starscream easily slipped away from the blade, and behind Dreadwing, using his long black talons to slice his enemy's torso. He twisted around. His other servo, shifted to his blaster and with one quick movement fired into Dreadwing's back.

Dreadwing stumbled forward, partially to just being shot, and partially due to not expecting Starscream to be that fast. He quickly shook the blow off and turned back towards Starscream. The seeker stood there, the way he held himself, so confident, so strong, so fearless. Last he heard, Megatron had broken most of his fighting spirit. What had this human done to him?

Starscream stared Dreadwing down, waiting for his next move. He quickly ducked under Dreadwing's next swing before thrusting his heel into Dreadwing's torso, pushing him back. He slipped away again, his slender frame made it easier to move and harder to hit. Dreadwing realized that and put his sword away, balling his fists. Starscream extended his talons. The both stared each other down, and lunged.

Sparks flew, from clashing metal. Scrapes, grunts and shrieks, rang off the cavern walls. Paint was chipped and scratched. Armor plating, dented and cracked. Energon was drawn. Both combatants, were relentless; unwilling to lose. Talons scratched. Punches were thrown.

Dreadwing finally managed to grasp Starscream's left leg. His servo's jerks as he flung Starscream. The smaller seeker was sent flying into hard rock walls, before tumbling back down to the ground.

Starscream winced. Scrap that hurt. His frame made him more agile, but it wasn't all that protective. He was more susceptible to heavier hits. He opened his optics, only to see Dreadwing swinging his sword down in an attempt to cut, Starscream in half. Starscream quickly rolled out of the way, firing three laser shots, at Dreadwing. He needed to end this. Sure, he wasn't the best as running, but he needed to put some distance between him and Dreadwing. He swerved around, at the ledge's edge. He fired more shots aiming at Dreadwing's wings.

Dreadwing quickly spun around and rushed at Starscream. He was infuriated. Firing at a flier's wings, it was cheap, and dishonorable. Little did he know, this was what Starscream wanted.

Starscream, slipped to the side, making Dreadwing leap right off the ledge. Starscream fired once more at his wings. A mischievous smile spread across his faceplate, as he watched, Dreadwing's alt mode struggling to stay in the air, before taking a nose dive into the ground.

Starscream took off flying, back into the rest of the cavern. The Autobots were still in combat with the rest of the decepticon troops. Starscream, began to give them support from the air; he felt quite indebted to them after they saved Nya. But it wasn't enough. Most of the Autobots were pinned down, and greatly outnumbered. They needed to end this now.

He made a sharp turn close to the ground. The energon crystals vibrated, as he passed. Wait! The energon...

"Starscream to Optimus!" he shouted into his commlink.

"Starscream! What is the matter?" Optimus answered; Starscream was slightly surprised, honestly didn't think he'd answer.

"I need you to evacuate your team, immediately."

"May I know the reason?"

"I'll ignite the raw energon, blow the cavern. I'm going to end this."

"Understood."

He logged off his comm. He sped around the cavern, before looping around, and firing directly at the large energon crystal. A large blue explosion followed. With the first crystal blown, more and more crystals ignited, adding to the destruction. The bright blue flames, nipped at his tailpipe, as he flew threw a narrow tunnel to escape. (The main entrance, had collapsed) The tunnel was shaking. Rubble and dust were falling from the ceiling. They blinded him and dinged his armor.

Starscream felt a large wave of relief washed over him, as he exited the suffocating tunnel and into the cool blue sky. Which was quickly replaced with concern. He needed to see Nya. He needed to know if she was alright.

After a few moments of searching he quickly spotted, bumblebee. He was standing at the edge of a clearing in his robot mode, with a small human heat signature nearby. He flew down and landed. Nya was sitting and leaning on a nearby tree. She safe, clearly shaken, but safe. He started towards them.

"Starscream?" She spoke. She smiled, seeing him. Why wasn't she getting up?

"Nya!" He answered and started towards her.

Starscream was only a few steps away from her when suddenly a bright green swirling portal opened up next to him. Bulkhead jumped out and tackled him to the ground. Arcee quickly came into view as well, her blaster pointed right at his head. He didn't struggle, as the big green brute locked a clamp on his wings and slapped stasis-cuffs on his wrists; this was the deal.

He was set kneeling the ground Arcee's weapons pointed at him. They all heard a sudden click. And turned. There was Nya, pointing her hand gun at Arcee. Not a glyph of fear etched on her face.

"Let. Him. Go."

________________________________________________________________________________

Megatron, entered the main deck of the nemesis. The stunt with Starscream's pet, had cost a large amount of the mining crew and one of their most productive mines. However, they still got what they wanted. The access codes were theirs.

"Soundwave!" He shouted, "Open those files! I need to know what we've gain or what we've lost."


	6. Who is the Girl in the File?

Arcee just stared at the human before her, in shock. Blue, ringed with magenta optics locked with the forest green eyes. This human was aiming a fire arm at her and it was to protect Starscream of all bots! Was she insane or just idiotically brave? Arcee didn't know whether to be concerned or impressed; she was just silenced. However, Bulkhead had an easier time finding his voice.

The green giant titan bellowed out into amused laughs, "And why should we do that?"

Nya's years of being an intimidating, military pilot flooded back into her face, forming a cold hard stare. Aiming the expression at Bulkhead; the large green mech was surprised by how much that stare unnerved him. It was clear; this was not laughing matter.

Arcee looked at Bulkhead. She was surprised how much this small human was affecting the former Wreaker. She looked at Starscream. He seemed equally surprised; he must have never seen her like this either. She glanced at bumblebee. The little yellow scout that stood behind the gun-wielding human female, looked nothing but confused. Finally, she looked back to the human; green eyes still cold and fixated on her.

"Don't you known what he's done?" Arcee finally spoke.

"Yes, I do," Nya answered as she looked over to Starscream, flashing him a small reassuring smile, "He's told me everything," she faced Arcee again, "Now, I won't ask nicely again. Let him go."

"Then you know he's a killer. He's doesn't deserve to be let go," Arcee shot a stare, overflowing with burning hatred and rage, at Starscream.

"As far as I know, You're at war. Death is going to happen; there's nothing you can do about that. And no. I'm not saying you wanting revenge for someone you cared about is wrong. I was a soldier too; I know that kind of loss and what it can do to someone," her stare broke for a moment and she glanced at the ground for a moment, before her eyes flipped back up at Arcee, "But you can't let that desire make you do something you're gonna regret. Besides I doubt your hands, or servos are free of blood or whatever you guys have."

Nya was clearly getting on Arcee's nerves, or what ever cybertronians have. Power wires maybe? The blue femme was ticked that this human was right. She wasn't innocent. Arcee pointed her other blaster at Nya; she didn't even flinch. Arcee didn't really know what to say next, the only other human who she could think of that would stand up to a bot if necessary was Agent Fowler and she thought that even he wouldn't do something like this.

Starscream just stared at Nya in awe. He had never seen this side of her. She had always been so kind, warm, and loving. Either when she was a pilot, she was in the thick of it, or she was just down right insane. To say he was concerned about her safety now was somewhat of an understatement. While the autobots weren't prone to harm humans, Starscream, also knew, from experience, that Arcee could be pushed to violence if antagonized enough.

He should have stayed quiet, but once there was blaster pointed at Nya's head, he couldn't keep silent, "Nya, put the gun down."

"Hey Shut it!" Bulked shouted, pushing Starscream down with his blaster.

"Don't make me come over there!" Nya threatened.

"And just what are you going to do? Shoot us?" Arcee quired.

"I know for a fact that not every part of you is bullet proof, and I got a pretty good shot."

"Nya, stop!" Starscream begged her.

Nya turned to Starscream, "Don't worry about me Screamer. She won't do it. If they're truly who they say they are, her boss would never allow her to hurt me," she turned back to Arcee, "Now let him go."

"No, Nya please just listen! I turned myself in for their assistance, in rescuing you!" Starscream quickly said before Bulkhead hit him again.

The cold determined stare that was etched into Nya's face suddenly broke, and look of utter shock washed over her, "You what?"

"YES! I DID! NOW PLEASE PUT THE GUN DOWN!" he pleaded.

Nya's wide eyes continued to stare at the grey seeker. Sensing the sincerity in his voice, she slowly lowered her hand gun and stowed it away in the holder on her belt. She'd been captured before, and instinctively raised her hands over her head.

Taking this as a sign of surrender, Arcee lowered her blaster, "Get them through the ground bridge."

Nya respectfully obeyed, but she wasn't smiling, as they lead her through the large vortex of swirling green light.

____________________

Raf's fingers clicked the thin keys of the laptop. The bright screen, reflected in his glasses. Something about this Nya the was nagging at him, and he had to know more. Looking at her file there wasn't that much he could go on; most of it was redacted for some reason. Only her name, callsign, rank, reason of early termination, and a few of the many missions she had been on were visible. Why was all this information on her missing?

Jack looked over to his younger friend, seeing his face screwed into a determined and frustrated hard stare. He stopped trying to cheer up Miko, (she was still salty about not being allowed on the mission, like always) for a second and went over to the miniature genius.

"Hey, Raf what you working on?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing much, just mostly trying to find out more about this Nya person."

Over hearing their conversation Miko decided that talking would be much better than waiting in silence, and joining in, "Why? We can just ask her or Starscream when they get back."

"Well, I'm curious. There's a lot of information in her files that's missing. Like what exact reason why she was fired. Sure, it says insubordination but that could mean a lot of things. Did she break a rule, did she mess up on a mission, or just not follow orders? Not mention all the other stuff that's redacted. It's odd. Besides we don't know what condition she'll be in when she gets here and I doubt the bots will let us talking to Starscream. So might as well look."

"Ooh! Sounds like a mystery!" Miko said now greatly interested.

"Well, what did you find on her?" Jack, asked.

"Nothing much to be honest. I was going to investigate the files on some of the mission she was supposed to be on but..." Raf said.

"But what?" Jack asked.

"When I checked the mission files, she wasn't mention in any of them." Raf explained.

"What?" Miko said.

"In these files there always a list of all the soldiers or people who were involved. I can't find her name in any of them," Raf explained.

"Maybe they just forgot to write her name down?" Jack suggested.

"On over seven different mission files? I doubt it," Raf said.

"Raf is right, the Airforce ain't that sloppy. Seven files you said?" Fowler joined in; he was curious about this girl too.

The bespectacled boy nodded, "Those are the only ones I've check though, there are a lot more here."

"That's not right. Why would they keep so much of her information in the dark?" Fowl sat next to the children.

Miko's mind and mouth began to ramble with excitement and possible theories, "OOH!! MAYBE SHE WAS CAPTURE BY AN EMENY AND BRAIN WASHED! OR MAYBE SHE SAW SOMETHING! YEAH! SHE SAW SOMETHING SHE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO SEE!! OOH!! OR *gasp* MAYBE SHE'S AN DECEPTICON HERSELF!"

"Whoa Miko calm down. First off, she is clearly a real person, and couldn't be an alien robot. Second, she was an air force pilot, not a spy," Jack said.

"Aww..." Miko said.

"While Miko's theories maybe a bit out there. Someone is defiantly trying to cover something up here. None of this info on her wouldn't be scratched out if it wasn't." Fowler said, "Did you find anything else on her?"

"Not really, but I did find some of her old training videos." Raf turned back to the laptop, clacking the keys again.

A video file quickly popped up onto the screen. The four of them watched in awe as a state-of-the-art military jet twisted and turned through drills while firing at targets; never missing one of them.

"Wow," Raf whispered.

"Man! She is good! Do you think she could teach me?" Miko asked.

"Miko she was terminated. I don't think she has a license to fly right now, much less teach." Jack said.

"Aww."

The ground bridge activated behind them, and Bulkhead, Arcee, Optimus, and smokescreen all ran inside, narrowly missing an explosion.

"Is everyone alright? What was that explosion?" Ratchet quickly asked, concerned for his team.

"We are fine old friend. Starscream gave us enough time to make our exit before he blew the mine." Optimus explained.

"Speaking of the seeker where is he?" ratchet looked at the group noticing that some one was missing, "Or bumblebee?"

"Bumblebee is currently with the girl, waiting for a ground bridge. I suspect that Starscream managed to escape the blast through an upward tunnel, that or..." Optimus cut himself off, as he walked towards the monitor to contact bumblebee.

Smokescreen looked towards the four humans who were still staring at Raf's Lap top. Hearing that Optimus hadn't assigned him to help retrieve the girl, he decided to check out what they were so interested in.

"Hey guys."

"Hi'ya smoke!" Miko said.

"What are you looking at?"

"Just doing a little research on the human the Starscream mention," Raf answered, and turned the laptop to show Smokescreen, "Look."

Smokescreen's optics widened at the screen, clearly impressed, "Whoa! Are you sure that's human piloting that thing?"

"Positive Kiddo," Fowler confirmed.

"Wow, she could put any seeker to shame," Smokescreen marveled.

"Seeker? Is that like a cybertronian fighter pilot?" Fowler asked.

"Yeah, kind of, the best flyers held the title of Seeker, but not all of them were strictly trained for combat," Smokescreen explained, "But she could easily make high rank combat seeker."

"Do you think that Optimus will give her a job after this?" Miko asked.

"What do you mean by that Miko?" Jack asked.

"I mean, that she's good at flying, probably needs a job, and with her as the bots' air support we could take the decepticons down twice as fast! You saw the video! Optimus should totally ask her to join," Miko said.

"Not that I don't agree with you Miko, but I think that if she was terminated, there had to be a reason. Maybe, she shouldn't be on a military team," Said Raf.

Miko grumbled clearly disappointed with this. "I still want to talk to her though."

"I'm with you on that Miko. I've got quite a few questions for her," Fowler said.

"Looks like you won't have to wait long for that," Smokescreen said.

The attention of everyone in the base was suddenly on the ground bridge portal. Arcee was first to come through, followed but a very tied up Starscream, then the woman of the hour walked thought shortly followed by bulkhead.

Nya gently shook off the unearthly tingling feeling that the ground bridge gave her, before glanced around her new surroundings. The autobot base was, not what she had expected, granted she didn't know what she expected. Maybe she thought that it wouldn't have been similar to the decepticons'? She didn't know. The walls appeared to be stone, rather than metal making her think that they were somewhere underground. She was thankful that it was at least well lighten, unlike the cold steely halls of what the decepticons called home.

The autobot ranks, seemed to be much smaller and laced with more variety. She didn't see any of the look like clone things like back at the mine. The tallest of them all, a red and blue bot, he was the one in charge; she could tell that with a passing glance.

After a few seconds her gaze shifted to the silver seeker. He wasn't looking back at her. Something was off. Why didn't he turn around? She, only got a few moments, before he was rushed away. She would have run after them, if middle-aged dark-skinned man, hadn't walked up to her.

"Major Nya Lee?" The man spoke.

"It's been a long time since anyone called me that," she answered.

"Good to know we got the right person."

The sound of heavy footsteps put the conversation on hold. Nya looked up to see the tall red and blue Autobot. After close interaction with Megatron she wasn't impressed or frightened.

"Major Nya Lee. I am Optimus Prime, Leader of the Autobots. I trust you are unharmed."

"Nothing more than a couple bumps and bruises, and... just call me Nya. I was stripped of my title years ago."

Optimus nodded and flashed her a small warm smile. This action made Nya feel, slightly more comfortable, but she was still on edge.

"Well than Nya. I'm special Agent William Fowler, of the United States government. I'm the autobots' liaison to the outer world," Fowler extended his hand.

Nya excepted the handshake, "So, you're the babysitter?" She asked only to get a very unamused stare at her, "Okay, so not much for jokes. Got it."

"I am sure you have many questions," Opitmus spoke.

"You got that right. Starting with, where the heck am I, and who are you guys?"

"The location of our base I'm afraid must remain classified. We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet Cybertron," Optimus spoke.

"I know that. I meant who are you guys on a more specific level. As in what do you do or want and what are you going to do to us?"

"Us?" Agent Fowler queried.

"Am I not allowed to worry for a friend of mine?" Nya snapped at fowler, before turning her attention back to Optimus.

"You will remained unharmed and any injuries you have sustained, physically or otherwise, will be treated," Opitmus reassured.

"So, you're not going to use a neuralyzer to rewrite my memories?" Nya asked.

"We're not the Men in Black, Soldier," Fowler said.

Opitmus was confused about who these men wearing black were and what a neuralyzer was. However, he put the thought aside, and returned his attention to the situation at hand, "While I do not know of 'Men in Black', I can assure you that your memory will remain as is. We protect your kind from the tyranny from our Darker Brothers who would wish you harm."

"I think I've met them," Nya said.

Optimus nodded, "I do hope you understand that we must remain a secret to the rest of the world."

"Yeah, don't worry about me I can keep a secret, besides who would believe me," she looked towards the hall that Starscream was taken, "Can I see him?"

"Excuse me?' Agent Fowler said.

Nya quickly turned back to them, "You heard me. Something was wrong. I need to talk to him."

"I'm sorry Soldier, but he's too dangerous for anyone who's not a bot to be around," Fowler said.

"He's not dangerous! I practically shared a house with him for two weeks and I'm still here."

"He was just using you," the feminine Blue Autobot said.

"What was that Blue bell?" Nya asked, turning to her.

"My name is Arcee. According to Starscream he was injured, and you knew how to repair him. As soon as you served your purpose, he'd would have turned you into a spot on the pavement."

"No, he wouldn't have." _So, this is the bot that was the partner of the bot Starscream killed. Dang it Starscream! Why did you have to kill the partner of the kickbutt, warrior chick, that is not good at letting go of a grudge?_

"Oh, Really? After hearing about your career, it's sad to see you fall for a deception ploy."

Every muscle in Nya's body grew tense with Anger. Clearly the past that Arcee and Starscream had shared was not something the femme could let go of. There were quite a few people from Nya's past that she never wanted to see again, either, but that didn't mean she was going to trash-talk them in front of other people. Especially to those who cared about them. She was fighting very hard not the shoot at Arcee and save her only shot for when she would actually need, but she was very tempted. Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Agent fowler saw the very intense staring match the two girls we in, and decide to step in so no own got hurt. "Nya, why don't you come with me. We can discuss your situation more thoroughly, while Prime gets his people's reports."

Nya slowly nodded, her body relaxing as she followed Fowler up some stairs. They entered an area with a couch, some basic human entertainment devices, and too her shock, three human children.

One of them, a girl that looked to be in her early teens, with hair styled in a way even Nya wasn't brave enough to rock, came running up to Nya, bursting with excitement, "HI! I'M MIKO! WERE YOU REALLY A PILOT?! DID YOU REALLY SAVE STARSCREAM'S LIFE?! WHAT'S THE MOST DANGEROUS MISSION YOU'VE EVER GONE ON?! DID YOU REALLY REFORM STARSCREM?! DO YOU THINK YOU COULD TEACH MY TO FLY LIKE YOU?!"

Nya watched the very energetic girl that was jumping up and down in front of her, a bit flustered. She liked rough, energetic, kids. She was just too tired to understand her right now.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Kiddo. I need you to slow down. I don't mind answering questions; it's just been a very long day and you're talking way too fast. Ok?" Nya said calmly with a warm smile on her face.

Miko nodded very enthusiastically.

"Okay. Now I can get I get your name again, little miss?" Nya asked.

"I'm Miko!" Miko Yelped, before turning around to point at the other two children both boys, "Black hair, is Jack and Mister hacker, is Raf!" she whipped back around to Nya, a bright smile on her face.

Nya turned to Fowler, "So it's too dangerous, of me to be around one cybertronian, yet it's perfectly fine for three underaged kids to hang around multiple?"

Fowler sighed, "The Autobots have agreed to work with the human government willingly and believed that, 'Freedom is the right of all sentient beings' to quote Prime. We can trust them with the children."

"If they believe that everyone deserves to be free, then why are they locking Starscream up?"

The room went silent. Even the Medic, who Nya didn't even know was eavesdropping, froze. Fowler wasn't sure how to respond. Sure, Nya was probably being a smart-alecky, but she made a good point. Optimus might have to change his slogan. The silent continued until it grew awkward.

Raf decided to break the silence, "Were you really fighter pilot?" he asked.

"How did you know that?" Nya asked, turning to the young boy.

"Uhm, I look up your name in the data base," Raf said.

Nya picked up on the boy's shyness, and made her voice soft to put him at ease. "You read my file?"

"Yeah, we did," Fowler answered, "You have a very interesting one."

"So, you were really a pilot?" Miko asked.

"Yeah, I was kiddo but that was a long time ago. I haven't been at the helm of a f-181 Black Wasp, in a long time," Nya answered.

"What happened?", the oldest boy, jack asked.

"I was wondering that too. Why were you terminated?" Fowler asked.

Nya sighed and walked over to the guardrail. She grabbed the rail, leaning her weigh onto her hands. She hung her head, "You read my file shouldn't you know?"

"I did, but something was off. I saw your training videos, you're good. Too good for them to get ride of you for being a wildcard."

"Do you want me to tell you the order or the reality?" Nya asked, standing up strait and looking back at Fowler.

"Which one's true?"

"Well, what happened was..." Nya gave a quick, pained gasp and reached out for the guardrail.

All the stress of the day had finally caught up to her. There was a sharp pain in her chest, like a burning hot silver blade had suddenly been forced into her. The world around her began to distort once more, but this time it was more violent. She lost touch with reality, everything was nothing but a swirling view of unknown colors and sounds she couldn't make out. A vice grip suddenly seized her chest. She couldn't breathe. The shrapnel in her chest was on fire. Her legs buckled and she began to fall down into a dark pit. Down, down, down. The black swallowed her alive.

Fowler had to blink, and rush forward the catch the seemingly healthy young woman, that had suddenly collapsed. He had to hold Nya's body down, as it jerked back and forth up and down. Her mouth began to foam. What was going on?

Miko screamed, causing every single Autobot in the base to rush over. Optics stared on in shock; they had never a seizer before. Suddenly, Nya when limp. Fowler pressed his fingers against her neck, praying that she wasn't gone.

"Jack! Call your mom!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N**
> 
> **Well, I completed another chapter! And yes, this story is not dead! I did so many revisions of this chapter! I hope people enjoy what this one holds! My birthday has just pasted and this my gift to all of you! With the state that the world is currently in, I hope that I can bring smiles to some people's faces! Stay tuned for the next chapter!**


	7. A Call to Arms

His heels clacked against the hard stone floor. He paced around in his new cell with a passion. His wings ached from the constant pressure of the clamp that bound them. The enclosed plain walls would no doubt trigger his claustrophobia at some point. The only piece of furniture, a simple recharge berth, made the room only appear smaller. All of these factors would normally agitate him, but right now he was focused on something entirely different.

Nya was safe, he was so relieved. Nya was safe, he was so confused and ashamed. This small creature baffled him. He failed to keep her safe from the decepticons, yet she had tried to defend him when she thought he was in danger? Why? Shouldn't she hate him? It was his fault that she had been captured, that she was now wrapped up in war, for primus's sake! She should hate him, maybe even be frighten by him, but she wasn't. It baffled him.

Back with the decepticons, whenever he had failed, there would always be consequences. If it had been minor, he'd might have been able to beg himself out of a beating, but if it were something major, he'd receive a one-way ticket to med bay. Sure, he didn't expect Nya to beat him, but he had been positive that she would have been furious with him or would want to forget ever meeting him, but that didn't happen. The opposite had happened. She stood up for him. She defended him. She probably would have fought and died by Arcee's servo, if he hadn't stepped in. All for him. Why? Why was she doing this? So, he would be always indebted to her? So, she could torture his mind? Why?

Maybe, she was doing this because...she cared for him. No, she couldn't. No one cared about, Starscream, the decepticons' former second in command. Not anymore. The last people who cared about him was his trine, and he didn't even know if they were alive. Thundercracker. Skywarp. His... What was that earth word? Brothers? That was it. His brothers. It had been vorns since he had seen them, not since... No, he couldn't think about them now, he didn't want to start crying when there could be an autobot just outside of his door, but he couldn't help it. It had been so long since he thought about them.

Nya made him feel the same way that his trine made him feel...safe. He hadn't felt safe since Megatron returned. Maybe that's why he was so determined to get her back. She healed him. She talked and joked with him. She made him feel loved? Yeah, loved... that was the word. Maybe she could forgive him and they could continue to be friends? No, that wouldn't happen. He was a prisoner, the autobots would most likely keep her away. They would take her into protective custody. Far away from him. What happened must have been the heat of the moment, she must have felt threated and was trying to defend herself. After all he's done to her, she couldn't possibly forgive him. Human or cybertronian, no spark is that pure...

He wanted to scream in frustration. Why did this human matter so much to him!? She was nothing but a discussing fleshy organic. A feeble creature that the high and mighty energon Seeker Starscream, shouldn't give a frag about. Yet...Here he was. Panicking about what she thought of him and her wellbeing. Why did he care about this?! Why did she matter so much?!

He sat down on the berth. Everything was a storm in his mind, and his spark hurt, but not physically. He didn't know how to describe it, but it was utter agony. What should he do? He felt so lost. Maybe he should apologize? He'd didn't know if that would help, but Nya deserved an apology. If he ever got to see her again, he would apologize to her. He'd had just made up his mind, when a clearly female shriek made his spark jump, and his eyes grow wide with worry.

Something was terribly wrong...

He ran up to the small window in his door, and craned his helm and neck to try and see what ever was going on. He didn't know why, but his spark felt like it was breaking.

________________________________________________________________________________

Back in the main area of the silo, June had rushed in the moment Jack had called. After finding Nya on the floor, she quickly got to work.

"What happened?" she June quickly said her voice concerned yet focused.

"Her eyes rolled back, she collapsed, and then started shaking." Fowler quickly answered.

"A Grand Mal Seizure," June mumbled to herself, "Ratchet! I needed her vitals! Right now!"

Starscream paced around once more, he could hear the panicked voices coming from the main room of the base. Sure, they were muffled but he knew something was wrong. What was happening out there? We're they under attack? The Decepticons couldn't track him here...right?

He started to pace even faster, as every single scenario flashed through his mind. All of them threating to stop his spark with panic...and included her. Why was this human torturing his thoughts?

Did he care about her? No, that couldn't be it. Could it?

He glanced back at the door. Whatever was happening, he'd prayed to whatever god was out there that he was wrong.

________________________________________________________________________________

June continued to rush around the young woman lying on a gurney in the Autobots sick bay. Most of the equipment in there was for treating autobots but there were a few pieces that could help with the situation.

June was busy doing a physical exam, while ratchet was setting up a full body scan. Sure, the old autobot wasn't a human physician, but ever since the incident with Raf, he'd taken to studying the human body and medicine in his free time. During his studies, he had been both impressed, and at times disturbed, by the human body. However, he knew he wasn't an expert so he took the back seat and immediately followed Nurse Darby's orders.

Ratchet had finally gotten Nya's vitals on the screen, "Nurse Darby?" he turned around.

June looked up, she had been trying to make since of the bizarre pattern of Nya's pulse, and the vital signs on the giant screen only confirmed that she wasn't going insane.

"Bill? Does she have any pre-existing medical conditions?" She quickly asked, several different possibilities flashing through her mind.

"None that we know of," Agent Fowler answered.

June had found Nya's Dog tags, "Well you should be able to get her records, shouldn't you? She's obvious military."

"We tried. Most of the information on her has been classified."

"Great, just great," June mumbled, noticing the bruising along Nya's arms and she pulled what was clearly pilot's jacket off or her, "How did this happen?" She looked back at Fowler, "Where on earth did you find this girl?"

Fowler looked up at Optimus, signaling the bot to tell her. As a witness it would be easier for him to explain.

Optimus nodded, "Nurse Darby, Nya was held hostage by the Decepticons."

If June wasn't in emergency mode she would have frozen in place. Held hostage? After being kidnapped herself and seeing Megatron in person, she knew how dangerous, and destructive the decepticons could be, if they wanted to. This information didn't really help her diagnose Nya. Now the seizure could have been caused by anything from stress to an injury that she had sustained as a hostage.

"Was she in recent contact with anyone? Any numbers on her phone we could call?" June asked.

"She didn't have a phone with her," Fowler quickly answered.

"And I'm none of us know any of her recent history," Ratchet chimed in.

"Well, we could ask Starscream," Miko said.

"Who?" June asked not recognizing the name, but guessed it was a bot by how peculiar it was.

"Absolutely not!" Arcee said.

"Yeah, why would we even ask that con for help in the first place?" Bulkhead said.

Bumblebee made a whirring sound, that June didn't understand, but Arcee's answer was enough for her to know what he had said.

"Just because he said they had spent time together doesn't mean that he knows anything! Besides if anything he probably rescued her to return the favor for patching him up!" Arcee's voice was violent and burning with anger.

"Look! If there's a chance to get more information on the currently unstable girl that might not leave this table alive! I don't care who this Starscream is! We need to know whatever he knows!" June shouted.

________________________________________________________________________________

The shouting had grown more antagonizing, making Starscream's concerns grow and the questions in his mind to swirl fasters. What was going on out there? He started pacing again, and his he wings began to flex against the clamp; he didn't even notice how much they hurt.

Sudden quick paced footsteps coming down the hall, made him jump. Was that the attackers?! Were they coming for him?! His spark nearly jumped out of his chassis, as his cell's door slowly opened. Arcee and Bumblebee entered. He didn't know whether to be relieved or continue to panic.

"What's the meaning of this? What's going on?" Starscream asked, his guard up slightly, hoping the Autobots wouldn't noticed how worried he'd had been.

"Shush!" Arcee drew her gun, which Starscream thought was a reasonable reaction, they didn't have any reason to trust him, "You said you spent time with Nya, before she was captured?" Arcee cut to the chase.

"Yes, for a few weeks. Why?" He answered, suspicious.

"Do you know anything about her medical history?" Arcee asked.

He felt his spark stop. Memories of finding her unconscious on the barn floor, flooded back to him. Did she collapse again? What is her human spark? Was she...gone? As far as he knew the Autobots didn't have a human medic. Silent panic filled him once again.

Arcee saw the confused look on his face, "Come on bee. He doesn't know anything." They started to leave.

Starscream suddenly realized that he hadn't answered, "Wait! What happened to her?" he called after them.

"Classified," Arcee said, "unless you have information."

"Uhm...she had been a plane crash, I'm not sure how long ago, but she's had some type of fainting spells ever since. It also did something to her spark, oh wha... agh! Whatever a human spark is called!" he sputtered out.

Arcee was shocked, by the sincerity and worry that rang through the Seekers voice. It almost seemed real. Then she remembered that he was a con, and the deception was in their name for a reason. She quickly turned to leave, before answering him.

"She collapsed." She mumbled, before slamming the door.

Starscream flinched, partly due to the door, and partly due to his wings hitting the clamp as they jumped. His vents started to work over time, as his insides began to overheat with worry.

Nya had collapsed again.

The words danced around in his processor, along with a whole new batch of questions, as he sat back down on his berth. Was she alright? That was silly of course she was alright...she was just fine before. But this wasn't before. He didn't know the extent of her condition. So, she could be... no, no, she was too stubborn. She couldn't be...could she?

________________________________________________________________________________

June was finally able to get Nya stable. Well, as stable as she could get. Her heart rate was still irregular, and there wasn't much she could do for her bruises and any other minor, not life threating, injuries. Knowing that she had been in a plane crash and had survived, made June both impressed and concerned. Surviving a plane crash was quite a feat but no one walked away from that unharmed. She would definitely be talking with Nya once she was awake.

The sound of heavy footsteps, entered the med bay. June turned to see ratchet, clearly concerned.

"Is she alright?" Ratchet asked.

"She's as stable as she's going to get, thanks to Starscream input. Did Raf manage to find any of her medical history?" June said.

"I'm afraid not," Ratchet said, "Like much of her information, it seems to have been erased. An idiotic decision if you ask me. Even if she isn't part of the military force anymore, that doesn't mean the information they had on her wouldn't have been useful, especially if she had been in plane crash," said Ratchet, "if anything they should have mentioned the... uhm what was it called again, Nurse Darby?"

"A seizure Ratchet. A grand mal seizure to be exact. It happens when communication between the neurons in the drain is disrupted," June sighed, "It could have been stress to that triggered her attack, or whatever trauma that she sustained in the crash," she sighed, "it's difficult to tell."

"Is she going to be okay?" a small little voice asked.

Both medics turned to see, Raf and Miko walking into the room. Miko was unnaturally quiet, and Raf looked nervus as ever, both of them knew that the situation wasn't a laughing matter. Suddenly the sound of rapid footsteps, both human and Autobot, came running towards the door. Bulkhead and Jack burst into med bay, a moment later.

"Sorry, Mom," Jack quickly said.

"We couldn't stop them," bulkhead explained.

"It's fine. She's stable now," June reassured, "but try not to disturb her."

"That's good news, the others are still worried out there," Jack said.

"Yeah, I didn't even know that could happen to a human. Come to think of it, I don't think the others knew either," bulkhead said.

"Yeah, well with the limited experience to the human body, you guys have I'm not surprised," June sighed, and turned to Ratchet, "We'd better go tell the others what happened," she turned back to Bulkhead and the children, "Can you four keep an eye on her?"

"Yeah, we can!" Miko Shouted, some of her energy returned know that she hadn't actually watched someone die in front of her.

Everyone quickly shushed her. The teen quickly covered her mouth, and smiled apologetically.

June smiled, "If anything changes, come and get me. Ok?" After, getting affirming nods from the boys, June nodded back to them, and walked out with Ratchet.

All optics immediately shot to the little nurse. All eager to hear Nya's Judgment. The last time a human had been in a critical condition in the silo was when Raf was infected with dark energon. At least then they knew somewhat what was wrong with him and what had happened, but this time they were completely in the dark.

"How is she?" Optimus questioned.

"Stable," June said.

Relief washed over everyone.

"What happened?" Arcee asked.

"A grand mal seizure. It could have been caused by stress, but I can't be sure without her medical records. Have you really not found anything on her?" June said.

"No, ratchet and Raf were practically disassembling the computers looking for it," Smokescreen said.

"Excuse me?" June, asked, the room when silent as all attention became focus on the human medic, "But how did you meet her in the first place? I know that she was a hostage, and you came to her rescue, but what exactly happened?"

Optimus, knowing that keeping this secret any longer would not be helpful to the situation, came forward, "June, Nya had been recent contact with the decepticon's formers second in command."

"Starscream," June guessed, as she continued to listen. She could tell that this was going to be a long story.

________________________________________________________________________________

The world around her was dark. A sharp, yet faint pain tightened in her chest, as she inhaled. She reached up and held her throbbing head. She didn't panic, this usually happened when she woke up in the morning. Until, she heard unfamiliar voices.

"She's moving!"

Someone gasped.

"I'll get my mom!"

Who was that? Their shouts didn't help her head. What had happened? The last things she could recall was walking to the alien's base, meeting the children that they apparently had, and... She had collapsed! Oh Crap! That stupid shrapnel had finally killed her! She was dead and hearing ghosts! Wait...if she was dead...did that mean he was here...

She decided to face the music and open her eyes to see what the afterlife looked like. She was.. not impressed. The afterlife was underground? Oh shoot! She wasn't dead. She was still in the Alien base. At least this meant that she didn't die and leave Starscream behind. She started to lift herself up of the hard, clearly worn out, gurney, when a woman that was wearing scrubs and had black hair adorning her head, came running into the room and pushed her back down.

"No, no don't get up." The woman in scrubs said.

Nya gently pushed her back and sat up, "Don't worry. I'm fine."

"You just had a grand mal seizure, and have been unconscious for two hours. You're not fine."

"No, really don't worry about it. This happens all the time." Nya quickly said.

June noticed how casual that Nya sounded, "How often is all the time?"

"Every few weeks, sometimes less, depending on how active I am." Nya sat up and swung her legs over the side of the gurney, after lowering the guardrail.

June nodded, and took out some of her instruments wanting to do a conscious exam, "I'm June. Do you mind?"

"Nya. You won't bill me for this will you?" Nya asked, half joking, half serious.

June chuckled and shook her head, earning a consenting nod for Nya.

Nya look up and just now noticed all the other people in the room. The children, and two other bots; a white and Red-orange one, and the large green one that tackled Starscream. She was slightly on edge seeing them at first, until she noticed how comfortable the children were with them. She flashed them a warm smile.

"Did you really survive a plane crash!?" Miko chimed in.

"Miko." Jack said.

"What? I'm just asking?" Miko said.

"Everyone has things that they might not want to talk about." Ratchet said.

"No, it's fine," Nya quickly said, reassuring the others, "To answer your, little lady. Yeah, I was. Not something I recommend trying."

"Yes, Miko listen to her," Quickly said the white and red-orange bot.

"I never said I was going to do it Doc bot! I just thought it would be cool to say I've survived through one if it happened." Miko said.

"Do you mind if I asked you a few more Questions regarding the crash?" June asked.

"Not really." Nya answered.

"How long ago was it?"

"Let's see. About two years now."

"When did the seizures start?"

"Right after I was kick out of the medical wing of the base near where the crash happened, AKA not long after I was fired."

"Have the seizures been getting more frequent since then?"

"Yeah. At first, they'd happen, maybe, every two and a half months. Then they gradually started to pick up to every two weeks or less."

"Have you seen any doctors about this?"

"I would have, but can't afford it. I don't have insurance."

"Do you know your heart beat is irregular?"

"I'd be surprise if it wasn't, considering I have nearly two pounds of shrapnel stick in my chest."

"What?" June suddenly asked in shock, before turning to White and red-orange bot, "Ratchet, I thought you scan her?"

"I did," Ratchet said pulling up the scans on a nearby monitor.

"They how did we miss, two pounds of shrapnel stuck in this girl's chest?" June walked over to where Ratchet was.

Ratchet pointed to some bizarre looking spots on the scan, "I did see these and thought they were odd, but I just thought maybe her skeletal structure was different."

"Nope, Ratchet, that defiantly not supposed to be in her body," June turned back to Nya, "How did this happen?"

"It happened in the crash."

"And your medics didn't remove it?" Ratchet asked.

"No, not after I wreaked their fancy jet. Kicking me to the curb was a much better option, in their eyes."

"What do you...?"

"Well look who back out of kicking the bucket!"

Nya looked passed the others and saw that Agent Fowler enter the room.

"Agent Fowler." Nya greeted.

"Good to see you awake, soldier. I had honestly thought you had been late to a meeting with the good lord himself."

She chuckled, "Not yet. Sorry if I made you worry."

"It's fine. You're alright now?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Fine? Major Nya Lee you are not fine. You have multitudes of shrapnel, currently stuck in your chassis." Said Ratchet.

"What?" Fowler asked, surprised.

"Yes, and you was just about to tell us how this occurred?" said, Ratchet, turning to Nya.

All eyes suddenly shifted to Nya. She took a deep breath; it was time to come clean.

________________________________________________________________________________

_It had been a sunny afternoon. The air was dry and the winds calm. It was perfect._

_I remember walking onto the tarmac, and my best friend's laugh; he had been my copilot that day._

_My grip on the controls, had been firm but gentle. The jet didn't like me being a strict commander, but rather a gentle guide. There had been a few blips on the instruments, but I didn't think too much about it. It was new tech._

_I remember the command clear as day,_

_"Go for a nose dive."_

_I lowered the front of the jet, taking a deep breath. I counted down the yards I had before I to pull up. Deciding to play it safe I tried to pull up early but... it didn't respond._

_My breath quickened as I tried again. The instruments and screens either went black or haywire. I heard my copilot call out from behind me. The cockpit began to shake. I looked up, or rather down. To see the trees flying towards us...then nothing._

_When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital bed. Terminated, disabled, and grieving._

________________________________________________________________________________

Fowler, looked at the young pilot before him. She was close to tears. Clearly going back through that event, had reopened some deep didn't know what to say.

The children and bots in the room seemed to be for a loss of words as well. Even Miko was unnaturally quiet.

"And the doctors on seen just left the shrapnel in your chest?" June broke the silence

"Yep, they just patched me up, and sent me on my way. Their excuse was that it was too risky and they didn't want to risk my family suing, if I didn't make it during the extraction. Though I personally think that a lo..." she glanced at the children, and cleared his throat, "lie. After my father death, I consider myself an orphan."

"That explains why you were terminated. But it doesn't help your files make sense." Fowler said.

"Oh, that...hehe...let's just say I also managed to tick off a lot people with a lot of money, that day." Nya rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

Agent fowler was about to asked for more details, but his cell phone prevented him from doing so. Excusing himself, he quickly returned to the main part of the base in order to take his call.

"She's alright prime. A little shaken up but, that's expected," he voiced to the Autotbot leader before walking off.

________________________________________________________________________________

"So how fast have you flown?" Miko asked.

"uhm I can't really remember..." Nya answered.

Ratchet and June had left, now that Nya was conscious and stable. Leaving the former pilot to the endless questions of the children (Mostly Miko) and Bulkhead. But some of them she didn't have the chance to answer many of them.

"How many missions have you been on?"

"Uh..."

"How long did it take you to become a pilot?"

"Well..."

"Were you good at flying at first or did you have to train to be that good?"

"Uhm..."

"Why did you...?"

"Miko slow down. She hasn't been able to answer most of your questions." Raf interjected.

"I'm trying spill her guts!" Miko said, making bulkhead look at her, very concerned.

Nya burst into laughter, upon seeing the large Autobot's confused and concerned face. Her laugh sounded somewhat like a cackle but it was sweet and welcoming, not high pitched and evil like a witch's, "Don't worry big guy. She means that she wants me to talk, or spill the beans. But this isn't an interrogation, so it's kind of unnecessary."

"Beans?" Bulkhead said.

"Er...Never mind."

Sudden footsteps form the entrance of the med bay, drew everyone's attention.

"Hey everyone." A mostly white bot had entered along with the blue one Nya had aimed at.

The stripes on the white one, made Nya immediately think "Racecar". He also seemed younger, then the other two. He gave off a young energetic dreamer vibe, not that she found it annoying. She had seen many of them, as the base she had worked at usually had quite a few pilots coming fresh out of flight school. Heck, she probably had been one herself once. The only thing she hated about them was what usually happened to them. They'd start out so bright, so innocent. Then they would see something that would stick with them forever and that spark would vanish.

"Heya smoke, Cee!" Miko said, and the others followed suit with various greetings.

"Smoke? Is that short of something?" Nya asked.

"hmm? Oh...Yeah, it's short for Smokescreen." Smokescreen answered.

"Nice to meet you, Smokescreen. I'm Nya, my name is too short for an abbreviation." She offered a handshake.

"uh...okay," Smokescreen said, confused, as his experience with earth culture was still very limited.

"Let me guess you new here?" Nya said. Withdrawing her hand.

"How did you know?"

"When you work in military for a couple years, you learn how to spot them, and you are practically a picture-perfect rookie."

"Picture perfect Rookie? I'm not that inexperienced."

"Oh, cocky denial. Not helping your case." Nya said causing some of the people present to snicker.

"Heh, you're good." Arcee said.

"Thanks and sorry for... you know...holding you at gun point. Hehe...I just didn't know if I could trust you or not."

"It's fine I know the feeling."

"She was panicking when you collapsed. Think that she had scared you to death." Bulkhead said.

"I was not." Arcee denyed

"Yes, you were. I've never seen you pace so much." Smokescreen added.

Arcee growled. Nya saw the look on her face. It was complete 'why do they have to be right?'. it made her laugh again.

"Well, you don't have to pace now, especially if I collapse again. It was from something that happened a long time ago," Nya reassured.

"Okay! Okay! Okay! Enough Chit Chat! Back to Questions!" Miko said.

"Alright, alright, what do you got for me kiddo?" said Nya, returning her attention to the hyperactive teen.

"Okay, I'm going to shoot straight. How did you meet Starscream?" Miko asked.

"Oh, that huh? Did he already tell you that?"

"We're sometimes left out of interrogations," Miko said frowning, before instantly perking up again, "Besides I want to hear it from your perspective."

Nya chuckled, before replaying the memory of the night an alien crashed into her yard, "Well, it had been a normal day, I would have gotten up around six, or when ever the sun rose that day; it was a habit I formed back in, Flight School. I did a few things around my barn."

"You lived in a barn?" Raf asked.

"Yes, I did. One that was practically falling apart, actually. I didn't have the funds to afford a real house, or luck getting a job. But I was actually kind of lucky living there, it sat on a pretty large natural clay deposit. I used the clay to make sculptures, and sold them at a monthly fair, in the nearby town. It wasn't much but it kept me from starving."

"That's pretty clever," Raf said.

"I wouldn't have thought of it," Bulkhead said, stating the obvious making everyone laugh.

"Okay, back to the story," Miko said.

"Right," Nya took a breath before continuing, "Well, by the time the sun had gone down I had crawled up to hayloft," Nya paused seeing very confused faces of half the people in the room, "that's a little storage space near the roof of a barn. I reworked the one in my barn into a makeshift bedroom, and was just trying to fall asleep, by that point. But that wasn't going to happen. I heard a loud crash, and everything around me shook for a moment. I ran outside and found a gigantic hole in my yard, with Starscream in it."

"And you used your knowledge of jets from you pilot days to fix him, right?" Miko asked.

"Well, sort of it wasn't really flight school where I learned how to fix a jet. My father worked as a mechanic for military bases all over the country, he taught me everything I knew about jets. Sure, I found there were quite a few differences between, a cybertronian and a normal jet, but I managed to learn as I went along, and thankfully I didn't kill him." she joked.

"That wouldn't have been much of a problem." Arcee said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If you did accidently kill, him. I wouldn't miss him."

"So, would have left him in hole?"

"I might."

"Why? What reason would you have to leave someone to die? I know you have a history with him, but if you didn't what would be the reason?"

"He's a con what other reason do you need." Smokescreen said.

Nya looked at them, her face somewhat disappointed as if she was pitying them, "Have you ever been on a tight rope?"

Everyone looked at her, confused by the randomness of the question, and the fact that one of them didn't know what a tight rope was. Nya didn't wait for them to answer.

"It's a difficult journey from one end of the rope to the other. One miss step and you'll fall. That was what Starscream was going through with the decepticons. He couldn't speak out of turn without risking the chance of having a fist ramming into him. it's not healthy way too live."

"Why are you defending him?" Arcee asked. "Stuck on a tight rope or not. He's a bot killer."

"Because I've been stuck on a tightrope too."

The lights started to flash red and alarms began to flare. Nya and the kids covered their ears. Man, it was loud.

"What's with the klaxon?" Smokescreen asked.

Everyone quickly filed out of the Med bay and into the main area of the silo.

"What's going on?" Arcee asked.

"Decepticons," ratchet answered, as he worked on one of the many monitors.

"Wow, these guys really don't waste any time bothering ya'll, do they?" Nya asked.

"Not usually, and you should be resting," Ratchet said.

"Don't worry about me, Doctor. I don't plan on dropping dead in the near future."

"Ratchet, what has happened?" Questioned Optimus, as he and bumblebee entered. The little yellow scout buzzing his own question.

"No bumblebee, it appears they are converting on another area, other than the one we have recently been too," Ratchet said.

"PRIME!" A very familiar voice shouted. Agent fowler, came running back into the room, he must have taken his call on the roof. "The cons are attacking an abandoned, military base in northern India. You bots better get your saris and get out there."

Optimus, like the other times Agent Fowler had said bizarre phrases, just nodded, unsure if he wanted to know what a sari was, "Ratchet..."

"Wait did you say, Northern India?!" Nya quickly glanced at Optimus, suddenly realizing that she had cut of an over 30-foot-tall alien commander, "Sorry that I interrupted but I have to know. This base wasn't formally called 04-delta was it?" she walked up the stairs to the platforms.

"Yes, it was. Why?" Fowler answered.

Nya's eyes when wide, and she looked at the floor, "shoot," She whispered, before turning to the bots, "You can't go there."

"Why?" Smokescreen said.

"I was stationed out on the newer base located near the one the cons are attacking, a few years back, when I was a rookie pilot." Nya began, "long story short, the area is littered with land mines."

"And why that concern us? While a couple hundred mines are troublesome, if we watcher where we step, we should be fine." Ratchet said.

"Annex two more zeros on that couple hundred Doctor. Even creatures as small as humans can set multiple amounts of these things off, just by walking five feet outside of the base. In some place's the mines are set too close together and setting one off can trigger over 20."

Concerned glances were shared around the room. Optimus concerned for the safety of his team, turned to the only sore of information, "Can you confirm, this fact?"

"Yeah, I saw the base myself, and even saw one of the mines go off when a tree fell on it. Heck! This was one of the reasons why this base was abandoned in favor of the current one, it was too dangerous for the soldiers working there." Nya answered.

"Really?" Fowler asked.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure who ever was running that base, had a mental breakdown," Nya said to Fowler before, turning back to Optimus, "They only way to enter the base's area is by flying. That's how I was able to see in it the first place, I was doing a routine scouting mission from the air."

"Well, sorry none of us are jets." Arcee said.

"I didn't mean it like that." Nya replyed, "I meant that the chances of you getting through that field on the ground are near impossible."

"Is there a safe route through the field? There had to be some way to get supplies in and out that place." Fowler said.

"There is, I remember being told about it. I'd have to be there to be sure. But we don't really have to worry this right? if the cons aren't affiliated with humans, so they wouldn't know about the safe route. They would just be walking to their deaths." Nya said.

"No, they wouldn't, most of the cons are fliers." Arcee said.

"Well, then you guys are double screwed." Nya said, "There's no cover from air fire, anywhere near the base due to all the mines."

"So, basically the sky will be raining fire, and the ground will be erupting," Fowler asked.

"Yep, you could paint it like that." Nya answered.

"So, what's our move?" Bulkhead asked.

Silence fell upon the base for a few moments. They could either not go and risk the decepticons taking a win, or go and risk their lives. Neither option was preferable.

"You could just take Nya, with you," Miko said.

Nya looked at the young girl and did a double take, "excuse me?"

"Miko are you insane?!" jack asked, "She can't go out there. It might be too dangerous for the bots to go there."

"I know that, but have you forgotten she's a kick-butt military pilot, who doesn't take scrap from nobody. She'll go in a jet, tell the bot where the safe path is and knock every single out of the sky with her awesome flying skills." Miko explained.

"That's...actually not the craziest plan we've ever come up with." Raf said, bumblebee chirped in agreement.

"Really?" Smokecreen asked.

Bulkhead nodded.

"It's a long shot, but it could work." Fowler said.

"Are really agreeing on this?" said, Arcee.

"Due to her knowing the information of the safe path, the plan although, ludicrous, is feasible. However, with her current medical state, even attempting this could be fatal," Ratchet said, before turning to his oldest friend. "Optimus your thoughts?"

Optimus turned the Nya. The young woman may be the answer to the issues. He did not wish to involve her, to risk her life, especially with her health issues. He sighed internally, before turning the her, "Nya, I assure you that we will take every precaution too ensure your safety. You are welcome to decline. I know this is much to ask, but will you aide us in this battle?"

Nya looked up at the large metal titan before her. He gave off a gentle aura of calming compassion, unlike the decepticon leader. She knew she could trust him, and she felt she had to help them. There were just a few wrinkles in this play. One of them she knew how to solve but she was unsure if they would allow it.

"I wish I could help you, and I would in a heartbeat. There are just some issues that we need to address first." She finally answered.

Optimus nodded, signaling her to continue.

"One, how big of an assault am I expecting? I'm only one pilot, and I can't take on an army by myself. I know a suicide mission when I'm looking at one, and I know that sounds crazy coming from a person whose life has basically gone to H, E double hockey sticks, but I personally don't want to die."

"I understand," Optimus said before turning to Agent Fowler, "Agent Fowler is there anyway to acquire air support?"

"At this point in time, no. The active base nearby has already been evacuated." Fowler answered.

"Why do we need to bring in another new flyer, we already got one here." Nya said.

"You just said it yourself. You can't take all of them one by yourself." Smokescreen said.

"I'm not talking about me." Nya said.

The room suddenly went silent, for a solid minute before protests began.

"Absolutely not!" Ratchet said.

"Yeah, what's stopping the con from switching sides and shotting at us?!" Bulkhead said.

"Me!" Nya shouted, "As long as I'm up there with him, he won't try a single thing."

"And you know that?" Arcee said.

"Because unlike the rest of you, I've talked to him. I've gotten to know him. His motives and his thoughts. He's not an evil maniacal at heart. He's just a broken person, who was abused for a long time and is really bad with social ques. He trusts me, he won't do a thing under my watch. And if that doesn't convince you, he'll help me out of honor. I saved his life he'll help me out in return." Nya said, she turned to Optimus, "I know he's done some horrible things to you, but if you believe that everyone deserves a chance at freedom. Then can't you give him a chance to prove himself?"

Optimus stared at the small human before him, her loyalty and bravery was something to admire. It was easy to understand how she had become such a respected and high-ranking warrior. He pulled one of his small gentle smiles and nodded to her. Showing everyone in the room, that this chance would be granted.

"Optimus you can't be serious?" Arcee shouted, "We can't trust him!"

"I have to agree with Arcee, this is another risk on top of the others." Ratchet said.

Optimus heard their protest and understood their concerns. However, Starscream's recent behavior, and Nya's words, had shown him hope. Hope, that a decepticon, with the help of someone who was willing to listen and understand them, can be shown a better way. The others, could have protested for as long as the war. His decision had been made.

Fowler saw the look on Optimus's face; there was no changing it. He turned to Nya, "Is there any other problems we should know about?"

"I can't wear a flite suit. It could trigger an attack." Nya answered.

"Thankfully that won't be a problem." Ratchet said.

"Nya, I ask you once again, will you aide us?" Optimus questioned.

The green eyed brunette, turn back to him. Her eyes sparkling, and lips curled into a smirk, "You got a jet?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:**
> 
> **Well, that's another chapter up! there's most likely going to be one more chapter of the final battle, and then a epilog. after that who knows, what my next transformers story will be! (Totally not think about doing on about a certain cat).**


End file.
